


Ka Ho'omauhala O Ke Akua Wahine

by ScriptorSapiens



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Hawaiian Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-11 00:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7867492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScriptorSapiens/pseuds/ScriptorSapiens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of course we all know that the demigods deserve a vacation, and what could be better than Hawaii? The white sand beaches, the colorful flowers, the azure waters, the ancient gods trying to wipe out Polynesia...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nico I

**Author's Note:**

> General AU notes: The Titanomachy and Gigantomachy have already happened, but Percy Jackson was not a part of it. More details about the AU will be revealed as we progress.
> 
> Also, check out yourozness on tumblr! Her guidance is a driving force in this fic.

Nico di Angelo had seen many things in his lifetime. He had walked along the shores of the Styx. He had convinced a Titan that he was a janitor who worked in Hades palace. Heck, one time he had actually seen Hades smile in a non-creepy way. But without a doubt one of the nicest things he had ever seen was the look on Hazel Levesque’s face as their airplane’s tires touched the ground in Honolulu. She had been airsick from the moment the engines had kicked on, and now finally she seemed to be regaining some of her color.

“Finally,” she groaned, leaning into Frank Zhang’s massive shoulder. “I don’t care what they say, that flight was way longer than six hours.”

To his credit, Frank had managed to cram all of himself into the tiny window-seat with a minimum of fuss. If anything, he looked almost as excited to be on the ground as Hazel.

“It will be good to walk on solid ground again,” he admitted, pressing a delicate kiss onto her forehead. “I just hope that Camp Jupiter will be safe in our absence.”

“Oh no you don’t, Frank,” Jason’s voice came from the row behind them. “We are here on vacation, remember? You’re not allowed to worry about camp while we’re in Hawaii”

Reyna grumbled something inaudible in response.

“Oh come on, Reyna, have some faith! As long as Dakota doesn’t find the key to the Kool-Aid cellar he’ll be fine, and Leila has always had a good head on her shoulders. The Camp is in very capable hands!”

From the silence behind them, Nico assumed that Reyna had crossed her arms and looked away; it was what she did when someone else was right and she did not like it.

The captain’s voice crackled to life over the intercom, thanking them for flying with the airline and all that. If anything, Nico thought that they should all be thanking Jason; it was his presence and intercession that kept Zeus from striking the plane out of the sky the second it took off. With so many demigods in one place, it would be hard enough to keep the monsters away without having to deal with angry gods too.

When the plane finally came to rest at the gate, Nico undid his seatbelt and retrieved his backpack from under the seat in front of him before standing up and heading into the aisle. He was already in motion towards the door before Jason called after him, telling him to wait for everyone else. As tempting as it was to stay back to watch Frank try to unpack himself from the seat, he had pressing business in the terminal.

As he moved, people parting ahead of him and giving him distrustful looks, he spotted Annabeth. She had drawn the short straw and had to sit alone ahead of the other demigods. Trapped between two simply massive and obnoxiously loud men, the word “miserable” was the only look that could describe her expression.

He passed on through the first-class cabin and finally made it into the airport itself. A woman immediately approached him, bearing a garland of obnoxiously bright flowers. A quick glare sent her on her way with a minimum of fuss. Before anyone else could try, Nico managed to make it into a bathroom which was mercifully empty. Bracing the door with a wet floor sign, Nico crossed to the sink and opened the faucet to full.

“Oh Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, please accept my offering,” he called, tossing a handful of change into the stream. The coins disappeared, and for a moment there was quiet.

Then there was an enormous sneeze as Will Solace’s tanned face flickered into existence.

“ _Salud_ ,” Nico said. “Feeling any better?”

Will smiled sadly through his puffy eyes. “Not really, but I’m touched by your concern. How was the flight?”

“Fine,” Nico shrugged. “It wasn’t nearly as accommodating as the Argo II, but it worked well enough.”

Nico lowered his voice as he continued. “Has there been any word about…”

Will frowned. “You said you felt his death.”

“I did,” Nico admitted, “But when I visited Hades last week he was in a rage. Something about being cheated of his due. The only time I’ve seen him that mad was when Sisyphus made it to the gates.”

Will’s blue eyes lit up. “You don’t mean...is it possible?”

“Possible, but it’s strange that he would not have contacted us by now.”

“You don’t think there’s trouble do you?”

Nico rolled his eyes. “Where our kind is involved, there’s _always_ trouble.”

“True enough.” Will violently sneezed again. “Good gods, I hope this clears up soon.”

Nico had been hoping the same thing, all the way up until he had boarded the plane in JFK. Will had come down with this terrible cold a few days before their flight had departed. He had insisted that Nico go on vacation without him, giving his ticket to Annabeth Chase instead. The tall blonde was very clever, but had all the socializing skills of a post, so Will had sent her along in the hopes that she might thaw out in the tropical heat of Hawaii.

A sudden knocking on the door interrupted his thoughts. “I have to go, Will. I’ll message again tonight when we get to our condo.”

Will’s image blew a kiss at him. “Stay safe, Nico. I love you.”

Nico tried to return the phrase, but it was so foreign to his tongue that it came out as “Don’t die.”

The image dissolved as Nico removed the hazard sign and exited the bathroom. The man outside rushed past him without a second glance. Apparently there were more pressing issues at hand than the pale teenager who had barricaded the bathroom.

The others were standing assembled outside the gate when he returned. Frank locked eyes with him immediately.

“Nico, did you contact camp? Is everything alright?”

Since being raised to praetor, Frank’s devotion to the office had impressed even Reyna. How he managed to keep up his relationship with Hazel and put in the hours he did in the praetor’s office had mystified everyone, considering how much work they were doing to both unify Camp Half-Blood and and rebuild Camp Jupiter. One day, after a particularly long Iris Message with Chiron, Jason found both Frank and Reyna both passed out on top of one of the massive ledgers that they used to manage camp. That had been the impetus for their vacation; as pontifex maximus, Jason felt that it was his responsibility to ensure the safety of the camps, and overworking the praetors had constituted a risk to the peace in his mind. So he organized a Hawaiian vacation for all of them.

“Frank, you don’t need to worry about the camps. Cyclopes rose from the seas and destroyed them both while you were away.” Nico savored the look of shock on Frank’s face a bit more than he should have.

Piper rolled her eyes. “He’s just kidding, Frank. Both camps will be fine without you.”

Even without her Charmspeak, Piper’s voice was soothing to the ear. Ever since the end of the Gigantomachy Piper had somehow become even more beautiful. Not a man, or even some women, went by without scanning her up and down. Jason could hardly keep his hands off her.

“Besides,” Hazel said, taking one of Frank’s massive hands in hers, “It won’t be much of a vacation if you spend the whole time worrying”

“She’s right, big guy.” Jason put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “It’s a terrible offense to the gods to squander vacation time.”

Frank smiled uncertainly. He seemed to have trouble believing the words being spoken. He glanced at Reyna, and they seemed to have a small conversation just by looking at each other.

Reyna sighed. “Alright, if the pontifex says relax, then we’ll relax.”

Nico tried his best to escape the group-hug that followed, but somehow Jason had managed to seize one of his shoulders before he could achieve a safe distance.

Fun in the sun was had by all, mostly. The seven of them had snagged a few cabs and stashed all of their stuff into the condo they had rented for the week. The place was beautiful; two whitewashed floors and a patio with steps that lead straight onto Waialae beach. There were a ton of other people on the beach, and some traveling varsity team had the foolish idea to challenge the seven of them to a game of beach volleyball. 36 points later, they decided all unanimously decided to try their luck on the other side of the beach.

After that, things settled a bit. Annabeth kept to herself or chatted amiably with Piper, one of the two, and always from the cover of her beach umbrella where she flipped through the pages of _The Odyssey_ in original Ancient Greek.

Jason, Piper, Frank, and Hazel splashed in the surf. When no one was looking, Frank would turn himself into a dolphin and leap from the water. Reyna watched from the sidelines until Frank snuck up behind her as a crab, seizing her around the middle and heaving her into the surf (only logical, since he was the only one she could not punish for insubordination. Nico was quite sure it was all Jason’s idea).

Nico barely avoided the same fate by seating himself next to Annabeth. She had moved on from _The Odyssey_ and was now reading _An History of Polynesia_. Nico greatly appreciated the shade; despite his olive skin his lack of exposure to sunlight made him burn very easily, but he had promised Will that he would get some sunlight on his skin. So, as he sat there under the umbrella with Annabeth, he was startled when she spoke.

“Are you ready?”

She had not looked up from her book, nor did she look up when he spoke.

“For what?”

“For when they come,” she replied, her eyes still not leaving the tome. “Haven’t you noticed the tourists seem to be leaving?”

Nico had noticed. He assumed that it was because of how late it was getting; the sun was starting to get low, and shadows were beginning to stretch across the glittering sand. Now that he thought about it, Nico noticed something else: the Mist was swirling around them. It seemed to be wafting in off the sea. If he squinted his eyes, Nico could see what the other mortals could see: trash seemed to be accumulating around their space, and sharp shells seemed to erupt from the sand like flowers.

Nico’s hand moved to his side before he realized that he had left his Stygian Iron sword at the condo. As if sensing his thoughts, Annabeth’s hand drifted underneath her towel, where Nico could see the faintest hint of her drakon-bone sword.

“They’re coming,” she muttered. “Something big, or lots of them, but it is going to be tough.”

The sun set, staining the sky a mixture of pinks and oranges, and yet no monsters could be found. The Mist was swirling thicker than ever, but to Nico it had a strange taste. Whenever monsters came with the Mist, it was cold and clammy. Now it was hot and humid; no less unpleasant but markedly different.

By now they all felt it and had returned to their condo. The Mist was so thick it took all of Hazel’s concentration for them to find the steps that lead up to their building. She was resting on the couch now, her head on Frank’s thigh. Jason and Piper were upstairs showering and changing clothes, but Nico could not be sure if it was a simultaneous exchange. Reyna was making some sandwiches, one of her many talents that no one knew about (and no one was allowed to share on pain of death). Annabeth remained on the patio, gray eyes scanning the shore and the palm trees behind them for any sign of trouble.

Despite all this tension, nothing happened even after the sun’s red glow faded into a dark purple. The stars twinkled overhead, and the surf lapped lazily on the shore. All was peaceful. Nico decided to take the opportunity to call Will for the night. Jason and Piper had come downstairs to watch TV with the others, so Nico could venture upstairs without the fear that he might interrupt something.

The faucet ran, the drachma disappeared, and Will’s face appeared in the basin.

“Nico, is that a little sunburn I see?” Even though his face was even puffier than before, Will managed to smile in a way that was both infuriating and alluring. Nico hoped that the redness already on his face would hide the blush he felt creeping up his neck.

“The sunscreen bottle lied. It said I would be safe for fifty minutes.”

Hearing anyone laugh is infectious, but Will’s laughter came like music over the Iris Message. Nico could not help but smile back. Nico regaled his boyfriend with tales of the day’s activities, perhaps exaggerating the time he spent out in the sunlight to appease Will, who recommended freshly squeezed aloe mixed with nectar for the sunburns. Will was a wonderful audience; he laughed at all the right times and never interrupted. His questions after each story seemed to only increase their hilarity, and the way Will’s blue eyes met Nico’s made Nico feel like the only boy who mattered in all the wide world. He almost forgot about the ominous amounts of Mist that had been accumulating since the afternoon.

Will mentioning that the bathroom looked oddly like a tropical forest was the only thing that reminded Nico of how heavily the Mist had gathered. It was almost ten o’clock now, and the moonlight bathed the world in its silver glow, illuminating the visions of dangerous looking rocks and repulsive garbage that seemed to be getting more dense by the second. Nico told Will about it of course; Will was the only one who could tell when Nico was lying. Will’s face grew troubled.

“And nothing has happened at all?”

“Not a thing,” Nico responded. “There’s enough Mist out here that even I might mistake Cerberos for a chihuahua, but we haven’t had a single sign of trouble.”

“And Annabeth? Has she noticed anything?”

Nico stepped toward the small window that overlooked the patio; Annabeth was gone, presumably inside watching TV with the others. “No, but she’s been so on edge that it’s making everyone else even more nervous. I’m telling you, Will, that girl is stretched as tight as a piano string. I feel like she might snap at any second.”

Will shrugged. “Annabeth hates to be outside of a place where she can control things. I thought a relaxing vacation might help her lose that fear.”

Nico’s brow furrowed with concern. “Will, you can’t heal everyone. You need to accept that.”

“I know, but I feel like I have to try. She’s done so much for us, I feel like we owe her.”

Nico’s hand reached forward to touch Will’s cheek, but only met with cold mist. “Will, I walked through Tartarus with Annabeth. She’s strong, she’ll be fine. Heck, I bet that she’ll--”

A sudden something caught Nico’s eye. It looked like a flash of light from outside. The words died in his mouth as he moved towards the window.

“Nico? Nico what’s wrong?” Nico put up a sunburned hand to silence Will. Over the noise of the TV downstairs came a different sound. It sounded like fighting, like a woman screaming. There was another flash, blasting the trees with blue-green light. It was right in front of the condo, concealed from Nico’s view by a stand of palm-trees, and swirling with Mist.

“Will, I’ll call you back; it looks like the trouble has found us!” Nico dashed from the room, hearing Will call out about Nico being careful, stopping only briefly to seize the duffle-bag that held all of their weapons, before pounding down the stairs.

The other six demigods were sprawled across the sofa, watching that new Netflix show about kids and monsters in the ‘80s. At Nico’s arrival they all sat bolt upright. Frank even stood up, unceremoniously dumping Hazel from his lap.

“Trouble?” he asked.

“Of course,” Nico replied, drawing his sword and tossing the bag towards Jason. “And conveniently right outside our condo.”

Jason paled. “If this place gets damaged we’re gonna have to pay for it.”

“Good to see we have our priorities straight,” Annabeth was already at the door; she had never let the drakon-bone blade leave her side. Her blonde curls disappeared through the threshold, Nico close behind, as Jason called after them:

“I borrowed money for this place from the Temple of Janus! Do you know what they do to people when they have to pay extra money?

From the noise on the patio, Nico could tell Frank was hot on their heels. When Annabeth needed to move, she _moved_ , and it was all Nico could to keep up. With his massive stride Frank was nearly abreast of Nico by the time they caught up with Annabeth. She had stopped dead, eyes transfixed on the scene in front of them, and Nico could see why. Nico had seen many things in his lifetime, but this was something entirely new.

Two figures moved on the beach. One was a boy, tan skin drinking in the moonlight, tousled hair black as the night, and wearing a t-shirt and boardshorts. His left forearm was covered in black marks, probably tattoos. All in all he looked pretty average, but he was holding something decidedly un-average. It looked like wood, about the size and shape of a tennis-racket but with one side curved inward. The outer edge was lined with what looked like shark’s teeth, and these seemed to glow a faint blue color. Every time he swung the thing the teeth traced lines of light in beautiful arcs across the air, and he swung it quite vigorously at a woman.

The woman was short and curvaceous, wrapped in a pale cloth that formed a dress that seemed to float around her like she was under water. Her long tresses of black hair floated around her head the same way, almost in slow motion as she ducked away from the shark-tooth-tennis-racket. Every time a swing got too close she would stretch out a hand as if to block the swing, and though the shark-tooth-tennis-racket never made contact with her skin it would ricochet as if it had, flashing like green lighting. She only used her left hand, though. In her right she held a knot of glossy black hair in a death-grip.

This hair seemed to be the boy’s objective. Every time he lunged with his weapon it was always at her right hand. The woman’s objective seemed to be the ocean, and whenever she could she would dash to the side, attempting to get around the boy, howling with frustration each time he dove into her way and swung his shark-tooth-tennis-racket.

Jason, Piper, Reyna, and Hazel pounded up behind them, coming to stunned stillness as they too saw the two fighters.

“By the gods…” Piper’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper, but the woman seemed to hear. Her eyes snapped towards them, and then her face twisted into some semblance of a smile, her teeth white as sea-foam that crashes onto dark rocks.

“Sweet children!” she called to them, stepping back to avoid another swing of the shark-tooth-tennis-racket. “Sweet children, come help me, _e’olu’olu’oe_ , this crazy boy is trying to kill me!”

The boy snarled and took a particularly vicious swing at the woman. “Leave the _haoles_ out of this, Na Maka! They have nothing to do with this!”

“Children,” she cried, stumbling in the sand, falling onto one knee and catching herself with her left hand. Her right hand, still clutching the knot of hair, pressed to her chest. “Children, please! He is trying to kill me!”

The boy seized this opportunity. With a crazed look in his eye and a snarl on his lips he surged forward, bringing the shark-tooth-tennis-racket down in an arc that would end at the woman’s forehead. Her mouth opened wide and she screamed in terror, curling away from the blow.

Nico saw a flash of gold as Jason’s coin flipped through the air, coming down into his hand as a golden _pilum_ , and staying there for only a second before it was lobbed straight at the boy’s chest. The boy moved quick as a flash, catching the haft of the spear with the tooth-edge of the weapon and sending the spear spinning into the sky.

Annabeth was close behind; his hands still raised from deflecting the spear, Annabeth seized the boy’s arm and twisted, pulling the boy off his feet and slamming him into the sand with a satisfying _whumpf_.

Just as quickly the boy’s leg lashed out and swept Annabeth off her feet. Nico caught a glimpse of jagged, inky marks working their way up the boy’s flesh before the limb was in shadow again. The boy was on his feet and running back towards the woman, who herself was back on her feet and running hell bent for the surf.

Frank’s bow twanged almost inhumanly fast as he knocked arrows. One shrieked through the boy’s shorts, grazing his skin. The boy dove to the floor and rolled, avoiding another one, rising to pursue the woman again, but Reyna and Nico had been on the move and were already in front of him, swords bared. Taking a step to gain momentum the boy swung his tennis-racket with enough strength to knock Nico back, purple sparks flying off the Stygian blade. Reyna’s golden _gladius_ caught the weapon and stopped it dead, but her gaze confirmed to Nico that she was pouring all her strength into meeting the blow.

It occurred to Nico that only a demigod could challenge Reyna’s might, and a powerful one at that. _How could a demigod so powerful have eluded the satyrs_ , was the question that came to his mind. By the looks of thing, the boy was about seventeen, far too old to have survived this long without professional help and training, and certainly too old to have not been claimed by his divine parent.

That said, Nico had no time to dwell on this. Immediately he reaffirmed his grip on his sword and jabbed. The boy danced away and tried to go around, but he instead had to duck an expertly aimed swing of Hazel’s _spatha_. He doubled back, blocking a strike from Reyna as he went, only to be met by Annabeth, flourishing her pale drakon-bone sword as she did.

The boy let out a cry of frustration, attempting to flee up the beach, perhaps to get a new angle and go around them all, but he ran quite literally into Frank, bouncing off the massive praetor and back into a circle of demigods.

“NO!” he yelled, casting his eyes left and right, searching desperately for an escape. By now Jason and Piper had arrived, completely closing the circle. “You don’t understand! Na Maka is getting away, and she has Keuakapo’s mana! I need to stop her!”

He made a rush towards Hazel and Reyna, perhaps trying to blow past them, but Jason seized one of the boy’s arms, bent it into an armlock, and drove him into the sand.

Behind him, Nico could hear the sound of feet splashing into the water. He turned and saw the woman, ankle deep in the surf, looking back at them with a grin that could only be described as pitying.

“Thank you, sweet children!” she called. “Na Maka will remember this!”

The boy thrashed behind Nico. “NO, NO, NO, NO SHE’S GETTING AWAY!”

“Guys, I think--” Nico was about to confide in them his theory that they had just been duped, but Piper’s voice cut through his thoughts like a hot knife through butter.

“Calm,” she said, her voice layered with enough Charmspeak to drop a minotaur, but it only stopped the boy struggling a little bit. “Calm yourself, we mean you know harm!”

“I-- no...Na Maka…” the boy sounded confused, trying to remember why he was trying to escape.

“Be calm, stop fighting,” Piper insisted, kneeling down and getting close to the boy. His thrashing ebbed away.

“I will stop fight...Na Maka has...calm…” He kicked a few more times, but he was growing still.

“Guys, I think we’ve been had,” Nico tried to get their attention again, and this time they all looked. The woman was now up to her hips in the water, grin stretching from ear to ear, holding the knot of hair triumphantly over her head.

“ _Aloha_ sweet children,” she called, the water lapping higher and higher as she walked further and further into the sea. “I hope you all enjoy ‘Oahu...while it lasts!”

“NOOOOOO!”

Piper’s pause of Charmspeak allowed the boy enough clarity to yell, and as he did Nico felt the ground shake, knocking them all off their feet and allowing the boy to rise up, seemingly unbothered by the shaking. The water suddenly rushed away from Na Maka, leaving her standing high and dry in the mud. Across the beach the water rushed away as well, and a siren suddenly wailed to life, filling the night with its eerie wail. The boy ignored all of this. Instead he leaped clean over Nico’s head and rushed the woman, shark-tooth-tennis-racket forgotten in the sand. Hazel scrabbled to her feet and was after him, both of them pounding away towards the woman.

Nico tried his best to rise to his feet, but the shaking was too much. He settled for rolling over to try and see what was happening. The woman was backing away, but the boy was closing the distance, Hazel hot on his heels. Then Nico’s eyes moved beyond them, and what he saw made all the blood rush from his face.

A massive wall of water was barreling towards shore. It was not a wave, there was no foam or crest, it was just a wall of indigo liquid moving to shore like a bulldozer, churning up the sea-bed as it came. Nico yelled out a warning, but if Hazel heard it she did not seem to care. Just as the boy reached the woman, one hand seizing the front of her dress the other outstretched for the knot of hair, Hazel caught up and locked the boy’s ankle in a vice-like grip. It killed his momentum and the both splatted into the mud.

The woman looked down at the boy with a condescending smirk and said “A valiant effort, little hero.”

Then the wall of water consumed them all.


	2. Annabeth I

Annabeth Chase considered herself an even tempered girl, but after a long day of waiting for something to happen culminating in her getting her butt kicked by some boy she had never seen before, it seemed understandable that she might be frustrated.

So when she saw the massive wall of water barreling towards shore, one might not think it unjustified that the word “ _Metrokoites_ ,” escaped her lips.

Jason had scant seconds to spare, and he chose to use that time to give Annabeth a scandalized look and say “Language!”

Then everything was darkness. The water hit like a punch from a giant, cold and merciless and spinning her around like a toy in a tub. She had her eyes closed, but every so often she would feel something brush her limbs and she hoped that nothing heavy or sharp would come that close. Knowing her luck, it probably would, but perhaps once Tyche would have mercy on her and let her walk out of this mess without a limp.

Finally, the water calmed and Annabeth felt safe enough to open her eyes. The salt stung, but worse than that she could see nothing but mud and wrecked timber suspended before her. The silt was too thick; it scattered the moonlight and made it impossible to tell up from down.

She panicked for a moment; visions of her dead body floating ashore filled her mind. Her thoughts rushed back to home, to her father who would never get to hold her again, to her brothers who she would never see grow up, to the visions of Camp Half Blood that she would never be able to rebuild…

A sudden onset of clarity hit her, whether because of her training or because her oxygen deprivation was starting to slow down her brain functions she did not know. Since she could still see, it meant she was at least close to the surface, close enough to swim there. She let a small bubble escape her lips, and saw it float away towards her feet. Immediately she kicked, reorienting herself upright in the water, but she noticed something else. The bubble was not just going up, it was going away from her, racing away into the gloom. That was _certainly_ wrong, since she knew for a fact that she was not swimming and certainly not that fast.

There was little time to dwell on this though. Her lungs were burning, and she knew if she did not find the surface soon she might do something foolish, like try to take a breath. Using all her strength she churned the water with both arms and legs at once. The water brightened and grew clearer. The surface appeared, gently undulating and urging her onward.

When her head broke the surface and the warm night air filled her chest, she was convinced that the moon was the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen. Even the stars seemed to smile welcomingly at her.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?”

The voice was unfortunately familiar. Turning her gaze downward, she came face to face with the boy from before, the one they had seen on the beach, the one who had been fighting the old woman, the one who had summoned the wave. Behind him, Annabeth could see her friends bobbing in the surf, arranged in a semi-circle around the boy. They looked to be some degree of dazed, all except Reyna. Her eyes were clear as ever and locked on the back of the boy’s head. She seemed to be contemplating a move, but the boy continued.

“You let Na Maka get away!” The boy’s face was a mask of rage. “Who’s in charge here? I need answers.”

Reyna spoke first. “I am Reyna Avila Ramirez Arellano, daughter of Bellona and Praetor of the Twelfth Legion of New Rome. This is Frank Zhang, my co-praetor.”

Frank nodded and waved blearily, not directly at the boy. Frank seemed to be a little less well adjusted than Reyna was.

The boy blinked, seemingly nonplussed at the list of titles. “Why are you here? Did Na Maka call you?”

Reyna shook her head. “We have no idea who this Namaka is--”

“Na Maka.”

Reyna’s face froze in confusion for a moment. “What?”

“Her name is Na Maka,” the boy said, emphasizing the space. “Not Namaka.”

Reyna paused for a moment longer, her eyes scanning the boy’s face, before continuing. “Well, as I said, we have no idea who Na Maka is, we were just here on vacation.”

The boy glared away angrily, slapping the water with exasperation. “Perfect, just perfect. You’re just a bunch of dumb tourists, I can’t even interrogate you.”

Annabeth seethed. “We aren’t just a bunch of dumb tourists! We’re warriors! We’re demigods like you.”

This seemed to amuse the boy. “Demigods? You mean like children of Zeus and all them?”

Annabeth nodded, a satisfied smile on her face. “Exactly. And you must be the son of Poseidon.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. “But I thought Poseidon stayed true to the pact. Maybe he’s the spawn of Triton or Leucothea, one of the minor gods.”

Annabeth shook her head. “Do you really think Leucothea could summon a wave like that? No, the only god powerful enough for that is Poseidon.”

The boy chuckled lightly. “Ok, so maybe you’re not dumb, but you’re still tourists. Those gods have no power here and nothing to do with this, or me.”

Frank seemed to have recovered enough to give a puzzled look. “But Mike Kahale, he’s from Hawai’i and his mother is Aphrodite.”

The boy shrugged. “I’m not saying crossover doesn’t happen, but your gods are not here, not now that Na Maka is in motion.”

Piper paddled forward. “You keep talking about this Na Maka. Who is she?”

“Her full name is Na Maka O Kaha’i,” the boy answered, turning to face Piper and away from Annabeth. “She’s a sea goddess, and whenever she shows up it’s bad news.”

“If she’s a sea goddess, then isn’t this a bad place to be?” Nico cast his gaze around the dark water, as if expecting to see the goddess’ face looming up from the deep.

Percy smiled. It was a crooked smile, easy and charming. Annabeth’s heart flip-flopped a few times against her will. “She holds sway over the deep sea. I made sure to bring you into the shallows.”

Annabeth quickly looked around. Sure enough, they were within easy swimming distance of the beach. The lights of Honolulu glittered over the trees, and the palms swayed gently. On the coast she could see flashing red and blue lights.

“If you thought we might be working with Na Maka, then why didn’t you bring us all the way in to shore?” Annabeth had a sneaking suspicion that she already knew the answer.

The boy shrugged. “If you were working with Na Maka, I would have had to take care of you, and it’s much easier to do out here than on the shore.”

A sudden and uncomfortable silence settled over the eight of them. The only noise came from the gently lapping waves.

It was Piper who spoke next. “But you’re … not going to have to take care of us, right?”

The boy smiled again. “Oh no way! You said so yourselves, you’re all just here on vacation. I’ll just bring you to shore and we can all go our separate ways.”

As he spoke, the water seemed to rush around them, and Annabeth felt herself immediately moving towards the beach with all the rest of them. The wind whipped at her hair, first chilling her wet scalp before it became pleasantly cool again. The closer they got to land, the rougher the water got. It started as small bobbing in the water, waves slightly larger than average. One caught Jason right in the face, causing him to splutter and spit out the water. Annabeth started to laugh, but another wave caught her in the face too.

It only got rougher from there. While the boy swam gracefully, the rest of them were increasingly aware of the breakers. Twenty feet from the water’s edge, the waves took over completely. Nico went first, snagged by a particularly large swell and tumbling to shore, coming to rest face down in the wet muck. Annabeth instantly regretted not having a camera; Will would pay good money for a picture like that. Reyna tried her best to keep her dignity, but her braid had come undone at some point so when she finally made it out her face could scarcely be seen past her dark mop of hair. Hazel was small enough that each time a wave rolled her onto shore it would drag her back into the water before she could get a firm foothold. Annabeth looked at the boy for advice, but he just told her to “go with the flow.”

The flow flipped her over three times before planting her on her bottom.

Eventually everyone made it to shore, but their dignity was commended to the deep. The boy himself emerged from the waves none the worse for wear, striding calmly out of the water. He offered a hand to Annabeth, as if she had slipped and he was helping her up, as if he had not just summoned a tidal wave and threatened to kill them if they were working for this Na Maka character. The packed as much venom as she could into her eyes as she brought herself to her feet and stared him right in the face.

His eyes were green, she noticed. Not green like grass, green like emeralds. Green with a slight blue mixed in and crystal clear, like shallow waters on a sunny day.

“OH NOOOOOOOOOOO.”

At Jason’s agonized wail, both she and the boy broke away from each other. The pontifex was on his knees in the sand, Piper gently patting his shoulders. In front of him was their condo. Or what used to be their condo. All that was left was the floor and a couple of timbers set in the foundation. Everything else was either strewn across the beach or simply gone. Nico, Reyna, Frank, and Hazel were moving across the sand, picking up clothes and other things that sat amongst the debris.

“What’s his deal?” The boy directed the question at Annabeth, seemingly oblivious.

She took a deep breath and turned to face him. It took a lot of self control not to yell, “You destroyed our condo.”

The boy paled and took a step back. “I...you...you were living there?”

She nodded angrily at him. “We had just moved in with all of our stuff, and your little stunt with the tsunami just wiped it off the face of the earth.”

He moaned and put his hands on his face. “ _Auwe_ , not again. Mom’s going to kill me.”

Annabeth decided that it was not the best time to ask what he meant when he said ‘again.’ Instead she stomped off and began to look through the rubbish on the beach. Nearby several emergency vehicles had parked to survey the damage. Although their condo was completely obliterated, it looked like most of the other buildings had gotten off with only minor water damage. The Mist was still covering everything, so the emergency crews had not even noticed eight teenagers combing the beach.

Annabeth bent down to pick up a t-shirt. Based on the size, dark color, and rib-design across the front, it was Nico’s, but as full of sand and salt crystals as it was it suited his abrasive personality more than ever. She stood up and found the boy in front of her, holding out a bundle of other clothes from the beach.

“Sorry about all this,” he mumbled, a furious blush covering his cheeks.

Annabeth accepted the bundle wordlessly and moved off, closer to where Frank was holding up a wooden beam while Nico and Hazel pulled a duffel bag out from underneath it. Piper had managed to bring Jason to his feet, and they were moving that way too. The boy followed her, stopping occasionally to pick up more stuff. “So, what’s your plan? Where are you guys going to go?

Annabeth shrugged. “Unless Jason packed a couple of hundred dollars in cash with him, we won’t be able to leave until our flight comes in next week. But I’m sure we’ll think of something. We always do.”

“Yeah, but this is small _kine_ my fault. Maybe I can help,” he had followed her all the way up to where Frank had dropped the beam. The eight of them stood around a pile of clothes and ruined TV; it was all that was left of their baggage.

“Please,” Jason growled. His electric blue eyes looked practically murderous as they bored into the boy’s face. “I think you have ‘helped’ enough.”

Reyna nodded with agreement while the others stared quietly. The boy shifted uncomfortably, the blush now covering almost all of his face.

“Hazel, we’ll need you to bewitch us into a hotel. Can you do that?” Reyna turned to face the girl.

Hazel’s golden curls had been washed silver in the night, and now fine white crystals were forming as the sea-water dried. “I could, but I don’t know how long I could keep it up. And that’s not even considering food. Did you guys find any money?”

Frank held out a hand. In it a very crumpled one dollar bill and some pennies looked very small.

“Perfect,” Nico grumbled. “We have just enough for a Happy Meal, unless they accept pure gold.”

As if spurred by that comment, three nuggets and a ruby popped up from the sand around Hazel’s feet as she fanned her face. The boy’s eyes grew wide as he watched.

“What about an Iris Message?” Piper suggested. “We could call Chiron or Leila. They can help, right?”

Frank shook his head no. “We didn’t get any divine currency either. Not a single _sesterce_.”

“I promised to call Will every night,” Nico said. “He’ll know something is up and call us soon.”

“But how long will that be?” Annabeth couldn’t keep the frustration out of her voice. “Your boyfriend has been getting sicker all week, he might not call at all, and if he does what then? Unless they can get a hold of Thalia and she comes in a plane it will take a rescue party days to cross the country, and even longer to get all the way out here.”

“All I’m hearing is what we can’t do,” Reyna proclaimed, stepping forward and drawing herself up to full height. “We need solutions, people, not compounding problems. Tell me what we _can_ do.”

“Well, you could crash at my place.”

Fourteen eyes turned and regarded the boy after his quiet suggestion. He was holding his hands and looking up at them with his head turned down. Annabeth felt like she was looking at a baby seal that someone had just kicked. It occurred to Annabeth that such tactics were remarkably unfair as her heart flip-flopped again.

“What?” she asked.

“You could stay at my place,” he repeated. “You can use my bed and the sofas are really comfortable in the living room. Besides, I owe you for wrecking your condo.”

Annabeth bristled at the suggestion. Reyna, Frank, and Jason exchanged glances. They seemed to be considering it, but Annabeth spoke first. “Look, we appreciate the gesture--”

“Plus,” the boy interjected, “my mom makes a mean macadamia nut pie.”

After wandering for what seemed like hours, the boy finally announced that they had arrived at his family’s apartment. Honolulu was surprisingly green and open. The palm trees watched them constantly and only ever whispered to them with their leafy fronds. There were skyscrapers of course, but they were far away and lit from below, glowing like spikes of pearl in the darkness. Canals lined the streets sometimes, lazily coursing through town and reminding all that the ocean was never far away. There was an air of quiet though, probably due to the “inexplicable” tsunami-siren incident early that night. There were only a few cars on the street, and even fewer people.

The few pedestrians that were out probably noticed the gaggle of eight teenagers, all of whom carried ruined and junky looking clothes, but stranger things had been seen, so no overt stares happened the whole way. Even as they climbed the stairs that scaled the outside of the building, no one stared.

On the third floor the boy knocked on the door, but very softly. Annabeth worried that no one inside would hear, but almost immediately the dead-bolt moved, the handle twisted and the door opened.

“Percy, it’s so late, I was worried sick! And Leilani was so upset that you missed dinner--”

The woman in the door was a bit shorter than the boy, her skin a few shades lighter and her eyes were a dark blue, but he was definitely her son. She stopped short when she saw the small crowd of teenagers on the balcony, her eyes first scanning them and then focusing squarely on the boy.

“ _Auwe_ , Percy what did you do, _kolohe_?”

“Percy?” Annabeth raised an eyebrow at him. She had been expecting a more...Hawaiian name.

The boy, Percy, seemed to be even more uncomfortable now that he was on the beach. He shuffled and stared intently at a spot on the floor. “Mom, it was all _kapakahi_ it's not my fault. I was in a fight with Na Maka and I accidentally...destroyed their condo, so can they stay here?”

His mother let out a long suffering sigh, but Annabeth knew she had already accepted their new guests. Still, Annabeth felt compelled to assure the boy’s mother that they would not stay long and that they would not break anything.

“You seem like good kids,” she admitted, a warm smile spreading across her face and crinkling the skin at the corners of her eyes. “Of course you can stay.”

Percy leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “ _Mahalo_ Mom! I promise I’ll take care of everything tomorrow.”

She fixed him with a look that assured her son that they would have a talk about this after all was said and done, but then she beckoned them to follow her into the apartment. Annabeth followed, leading the pack. Inside it was quaint, with shell-motif wallpaper and the smell of chocolate and fresh bread wafting out of the kitchen. A small lamp glowed over a comfy looking sofa, a small paperback sitting on its arm; that was probably where Percy’s mother had sat while waiting for him to arrive home. It was all very cozy, and Annabeth felt more at home in this small room than she had in a very long time.

A loud thud emanated from the door, followed by a grunt that was unmistakably Frank. Annabeth turned and saw him holding a hand to the part of his forehead that had made contact with the door.

Percy’s mother spun, hair flying, pressing a finger to her lips. “Keep it down,” she instructed. “My other child is asleep in the next room.”

Frank nodded solemnly. The thought of waking a sleeping child seemed to make him more uneasy than any of the things that had occurred on the beach.

This seemed to satisfy Percy’s mother. She told them that they were welcome to use Percy’s bedroom and the living room to sleep, as well as the shower to clean the salt off their bodies. Then she began to gather up their clothes. Reyna moved forward to assure her that the seven of them could take care of their own laundry, but the woman, Sally, told them that she had a deal with the laundromat down the street, and Percy could take their clothes there in the morning. Then she moved off into what looked like the main bedroom to get the new guests some blankets and pillows.

She also called Reyna “sweetheart,” but no one was allowed to mention it again on account of how red Reyna had turned afterwards.

Nico immediately moved to the bathroom and took the shower. Percy gave his bed to Frank, despite Frank’s vehement protest, since it would have been difficult to walk around a Frank-sized object on the floor of the small apartment. Jason and Piper offered to share the couch to save room, but at that moment Sally Jackson appeared, carrying blankets and pillows in her arms, and uttered a stern and non-negotiable “NO.” It was decided then and there that all the boys would share Percy’s room and the girls could have the living room.

Percy escorted Jason and Frank to his room, taking some blankets and pillows with him. The girls and Sally lowered the backs of the arm chairs and spread some blankets and pillows on the floor. Before long it felt like a sleepover, especially when Sally loaned them some baggy shirts and pants to sleep in while their clothes were laundered.

After an hour everyone had showered and changed and laid down on their makeshift beds. Piper had claimed the armchair (she said it was not Charmspeak, but Annabeth was not so sure) and Hazel could curl up comfortably on a smaller non-reclining chair, so Annabeth and Reyna slept on the floor. All the lights had been turned off. The only noise came from the hum of the refrigerator and the soft sound of Piper’s breathing. Annabeth had not realized how tired she was until she laid her head on the pillow. She was on the verge of falling asleep when Reyna’s voice came through the darkness.

“Can we trust him?”

Annabeth stifled a sigh. As much as she would have liked to sleep, this was a very good question.

“Reyna, if he wanted to he could have drowned us in the ocean back there. I think we can trust him not to kill us while we sleep.”

“Beyond that?” Reyna whispered. “Pardon the phrase, but we might be out of our depth here. He’s talking about gods I have never heard of before, and we still don’t know why he was fighting that ocean goddess. What if we are on the wrong side? And if he does turn on us, what then? We lost all of our weapons in the tsunami.”

Annabeth had considered that, but she was so tired she could not consider it any more than she already had. “Reyna, if we had another choice or any better information to go on, I know that you would have thought of an alternative by now.”

Reyna harrumphed. She was tired too, Annabeth knew, but sleep always came hard for Reyna, especially when she was worried. Recently she had been worried all the time. That was why they were on this vacation.

Vacation?

Annabeth started to chuckle.

“What’s funny?” Reyna asked.

Annabeth did her best to stifle the laughter. “It’s just so funny,” she managed in between bursts of giggles. “We came here to get away from it all, and it all found us anyway.”

Reyna started laughing too, laughing at the absurdity of it all. Annabeth laughed with her. Will had sent her on this vacation as a restorative. He knew how often Annabeth woke up in cold sweats, how terrifying her dreams had been, how every time she closed her eyes or let her mind wander she returned. She returned to that dark place where it hurt to breathe, where the only way to survive was to drink fire, where the black sky was filled with red clouds, where friends were left to their fates while she and Nico had escaped, barely alive. But Nico had Will, and try as she might Annabeth could never force herself to share this pain with someone else; Piper, Hazel, Drew, Malcolm, none of them needed to suffer with her.

So she laughed at how sideways their vacation had gone, and she laughed at the idea that a week in Hawai’i could help her in any way at all.

She laughed long after Reyna’s had receded into even breathing.

She was grateful for that. She was having trouble realizing when the laughter ended and the crying began. She cried until finally she fell into Somnus’ waiting arms, dreading the visions that would invariably come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if my Honolulu geography is a bit bad, but all of this is based on a real place that I found on Google Maps, so it can't be that bad.
> 
> Once again, a huge shout out to Sophie (@yourozness) for helping me with all of this. From the pidgin to the descriptions of Honolulu, it all goes through her and this fic would be nothing without her guidance,


	3. Annabeth II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first, sorry that this is late. School got crazy, and my computer decided to selfishly die on me, so I've had to get that fixed, but I'm back now, and the normal Thursday postings will resume!
> 
> As always, be sure to check out @yourozness on Tumblr. She's the greatest. EVER.

Several things confused Annabeth when she woke up the next morning. The first thing was how well rested she felt. Ever since the Gigantomachy Annabeth had been unable to get a full night’s sleep for the nightmares of what had happened in Tartarus, but now for the first time in months she had slept through the whole night. The carpet even felt comfortable, and the blankets smelled like sweets and hot ovens.

The next thing she noticed was the smell of bacon and hiss of hot fat. She memories of what had happened the day before came flooding back; the destruction of their condo, the boy fighting the goddess, it all clicked into place in her mind. Sally must be cooking, and by the sound of things she was making a lot.

The most confusing thing, though, was the pair of foreign blue eyes sitting very close to her own.

“Leilani,” Sally called from the kitchen. “Don’t bother our guests, they are very tired.”

“But the Princess is awake already, Momma!” The owner of the blue eyes was a girl, probably five years old, with straight dark hair flowing down her back and wearing pink Disney Princess pajamas.

“Oh?” Sally emerged from the kitchen, carrying a spatula in her hand.

Annabeth raised herself into a sitting position, stifling a yawn and rubbing her eyes. “Good morning.”

“It’s a good thing you woke up!” Leilani hopped up and down. “Otherwise _braddah_ would have had to kiss you, and that’s gross!”

Annabeth gave the little girl a quizzical look. “What?”

“You’re a princess!” Leilani declared, dashing over to an end table and retrieving a picture book, flipping through it until she opened it up to the _Sleeping Beauty_ page. It showed the handsome prince leaning over the sleeping princess, her blonde curls spilling over brocade-covered pillows, to give her the kiss to break the spell and free her from the wicked curse. “You’re a princess like Aurora, and if Percy had to kiss you it would be gross because boys are gross and kissing is gross too!”

Annabeth could not help but smile, but at the same time she realized that this was a potential resource for information. “Why would Percy kiss me, though? Is he a prince?”

“No, but he’s a hero! He killed a dragon and everything!” Leilani stated matter-of-factly. Sally suddenly lunged forward, scooping up the little girl and tickling her vigorously. A cascade of laughter rang through the house, lighting it up even more than the sunbeams streaming in from the windows. The clock on the wall said it was around eight o’clock. When Leilani called for mercy, Sally put her down and instructed her to get dressed. Then she turned to face Annabeth.

“Excuse my daughter,” she said, a somewhat forced smile on her face. “She has a wild imagination, especially where her brother is concerned.”

Annabeth rose to her feet, straightening out the borrowed pajamas she was wearing. “It’s not a problem, Mrs Jackson. She seems to be a very good girl.”

Sally appeared to be satisfied and headed back to the kitchen. Annabeth followed. It was a small room, certainly not large enough to accommodate all of them at once, but it was all very cozy. The walls were pale yellow, with white colored cabinets and countertops along the walls. In the middle of the room was a small table, also painted white, with three chairs and a highchair around it. Sally was already over the stove, stirring together fried rice with chopped spam, bacon, peas, diced carrots and what looked like almost a dozen scrambled eggs. A ketchup-bottle full of pancake batter stood at the ready as well. The smell was enough to make Annabeth’s mouth water.

“You don’t have to do all this, Mrs Jackson,” Annabeth offered. “We can just go to IHOP or something.”

“Nonsense,” Sally replied, her eyes still focused on the stove-top in front of her. “You’re all my guests, and guests don’t have to get fast food.”

Annabeth nodded, and Sally offered her some juice from the fridge. Annabeth opened the door and was met by a stunning volume of foodstuffs, all packed into the space so tightly that Annabeth feared she might cause an avalanche if she moved any of it. The door-shelves were packed too, but mercifully the mango and orange juice blend was right at the edge, so Annabeth felt reasonably sure that she could remove it without causing a disaster.

“You’ve got a lot of stuff in here,” Annabeth commented as she closed the door.

Sally laughed. “Oh yes, Percy has quite an appetite. He’s a swimmer at school.”

Annabeth nodded, pouring the orange juice into a glass. “Yeah, and I bet fighting goddesses burns a lot of calories too.”

Sally’s spatula clattered to the stovetop. When she turned to face Annabeth her eyes were wide and the expression was half-way between terror and rage, like she might try to attack Annabeth on the spot.

“Don’t worry,” Annabeth assured her, holding up her hands. “All seven of us have been dealing with gods and monsters since… well, since most of us were born. We’re on your side.”

Sally’s eyes scrutinized her for a moment. They seemed to peer deep into Annabeth’s own, searching for something. Whatever she was looking for, she seemed to have found it, because Sally’s face softened and she returned her attention to the skillet after picking up her spatula.

Sally continued to cook for several minutes, pouring the eggs into the skillet while simultaneously pouring pancakes into another pan. Out of the corner of her eye, Annabeth saw someone move past the windows right before the door opened. Percy called out quietly, “I’m home, Mom!”

Annabeth caught a glimpse of dark-hair and a red dress, accompanied by the rumble of little feet pounding down the hallway at a full gallop. Annabeth stood and poked her head around the corner to watch.

“PERCYYYYYYYY!!!!!” Leilani yelled it at the top of her lungs, covering the distance between her brother and the door in three steps and leaping into his arms. Percy dropped both the dufflebag and surfboard he was holding and wrapped her in his arms, showering her face with kisses.

The noise of a child both running and yelling combined with the thunderous noise of the surfboard hitting the ground and the metallic clang of the dufflebag was enough to raise the dead, or that the very least Reyna. She sat bolt upright, flinging the covers off her body and yelling “LEGION, DEFENSIVE FORMATION!”

For her part, Leilani seemed oblivious of the chaos she had caused. “Percy, Percy, Percy! There’s a princess in the house! I thought you might have to wake her up!”

Percy’s eyes opened wide and his jaw went slack. “A princess!? But you’re the only princess here!”

Leilani giggled as he planted another kiss on her cheek. “No, silly, like a Disney Princess! She’s in the kitchen with Momma!”

“Is she?” Percy raised his eyebrows and looked past the girl in his arms at Annabeth.

“Yeah!” Leilani continued. “Momma told me to go get dressed, but I stayed by the door to see if she would sing and bring the birds inside!”

“And did she?” Percy shifted Leilani in his arms, so that she was cradled against his hip and supported by one arm. Leilani turned to look at Annabeth as well.

“No,” Leilani seemed a bit disappointed. The beginnings of a pout were forming on her bottom lip.

Annabeth had always been awkward with children. She had never been close enough to her little brothers Mark and Bobby to learn, and at Camp Halfblood she avoided the kids that were too young for her to engage with intellectually. Even so, Annabeth could at least interact with some witty banter or a clever retort, but something had disengaged Annabeth’s brain.

Eight somethings actually.

Percy was wearing nothing but his board shorts. The rest of his upper body was stacked like a Greek statue, formed from bronze and not a pale Roman copy in marble. As he shifted Leilani’s weight the muscles rippled in ways that Annabeth had not before thought possible. She had seen many toned young men in her days, it was a side effect of living at Camp Halfblood and Jupiter all the time, but never before had she been quite so mesmerised by a body. Just as mesmerizing were the dark tattoos that danced from his hip, past his abs and below his pectoral muscle, following the flow of his body like a river.

And it really ticked her off that he was having such an effect on her.

She pursed her lips and looked around. Piper was groaning and rolling over, trying to go back to sleep. Reyna looked thoroughly embarrassed at her outburst, and seemed to be trying to turn invisible. Hazel was sitting up, but her mess of hair made it impossible to tell which way she was looking.

“Nice going, Seaweed Brain, I don’t think the neighbors heard you.”

A flicker of a scowl crossed Percy’s face before he returned his gaze to Leilani. “Are you sure she’s a princess? She’s awfully grumpy.”

Leilani shrugged. “Even princesses can be grumpy in the morning.”

“Like you?” Percy tickled her stomach, unleashing more giggles.

Sally emerged from the kitchen behind Annabeth. “Percy, just in time! Breakfast is almost ready. Would you go wake up our other guests?”

“Of course, Mom,” Percy said, stepping past Annabeth, his eyes fire-bright as he passed her.

“I’m coming too!” Leilani asserted. “I want to meet all of them!”

As he passed, Annabeth noticed that his right leg was covered in jagged marks. Not scars, but dark black tattoos that looked like rows of interlocking shark teeth working their way up his leg before disappearing under his board shorts.

In short order, everyone was woken up. Leilani had squealed that there was a giant in their home, presumably when Frank stood up. Since there was not enough room at the small table in the kitchen, the seven demigods, Percy, Sally, and Leilani all sat on the floor of the living room after Jason had moved the sofa out of the way. The food and plates were placed on Percy’s surfboard, which was propped up on a few books to make it the right height for eating. To say it was delicious was an understatement. The scrambled eggs were just moist, the bacon crispy, and the pancakes were fluffy like clouds. Oddly enough, the maple syrup was neon blue. It still tasted delicious, but the color was so striking that it made breakfast look like a cartoon.

“So,what’s the plan?” Jason was such a polite boy, Annabeth noticed. Despite his ravenous appetite he had neatly laid his fork and knife down on the plate and cleaned his mouth with a swig of orange juice.

“Plah?” Annabeth assumed Percy meant ‘plan.’ It was difficult to tell through the mass of eggs and bacon currently crammed into his mouth.

Jason nodded. “You said that Na Maka is bad news, and last night we let her get away. What are we going to do?”

Percy swallowed his mouthful of food and began cutting into more. “Well, _I’m_ going to go visit Aunty Dawn today and get their advice for what to do. I’m not sure about this ‘we’ that you’re talking about.”

“Look man, it’s our fault that Na Maka got away. If we hadn’t stopped you, none of this would have happened.” Jason paused to swat Piper’s hand away from his plate where she was trying to steal his pancakes. “My point is, this is our mess as much as it is yours, and we clean up our messes.”

“Please,” Percy wiped some blue syrup off his lips. “You guys have no idea what you’re up against. You would just slow me down.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Show of hands, who here has stopped the end of the world?”

Seven hands went up. Percy’s expression gave away nothing, but Sally seemed intrigued.

“Show of hands,” Jason said again. “Who here has defeated either a Giant or a Titan?”

Seven hands went up again. Leilani gasped. “You’re like Jack and the Beanstalk! You fight giants! That’s amazing!”

Jason glowed with the compliment. “As you can see, we are actually really qualified for this kind of thing.”

“Show of hands,” Percy regarded the table, his face deadly serious. “Who here has fought against the primordial force of the ocean that constantly seeks to destroy human life?”

Percy raised his hand and glared down the surfboard-table. No hands went up.

He nodded. “Like I said, you guys have no idea what you’re up against. I’m sure you want to help, but Na Maka is vicious, and if something goes wrong now, any time any of you or your families enter the water she will be there, waiting for her vengeance. It’s not a chance that I’m willing to take.”

Annabeth felt a twinge of admiration for Percy’s apparent care for their safety. From what she could tell, he was genuine; he honestly wanted to protect them, and not hog the glory for himself.

“Besides,” Percy continued, pointing at them with his fork. “You all have to get back home. I’m sure if you explain what happened to the police they would help you.”

“I think you should go with Percy.”

Sally’s suggestion was met with universal confusion. Percy’s head spun around to face her and he began to say something, but Sally held up her hand.

“Percy, I know you don’t want anyone to get hurt, but let’s face it,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “You have never fought Na Maka like this before. She actually came onto land, and land is the one place where she is vulnerable. It must have been a great prize for such risk. If she is willing to risk everything, she must expect to be able to win everything in return, and knowing Na Maka her victory will end poorly for all of us.

“These kids,” she said, gesturing at the other demigods, “are your best chance for stopping her. You said yourself that they were strong this morning, and they did save the world.”

“Twice over for some of us,” Nico piped up as he thoughtfully chewed a mouthful.

Sally smiled gratefully at the pale boy. “Besides, it will be good for you to socialize with children your age who have similar interests.”

“But Mooooooom,” Percy whined.

“It’s settled,” Sally said it with all the finality of a queen. Percy groaned and resumed eating, perhaps with a bit less gusto.

“More pancakes, anyone?” Sally stretched out a platter full of it.

* * *

 

The size of the islands constantly amazed Annabeth. Back on the mainland, it would take hours to drive across a state. But here, it took only thirty minutes to go from one coast of the island to another in a car.

Unfortunately, the small VW Beetle that the Jacksons owned would not fit all of them at once, so they would have to settle for the busses, which would take two and a half hours to make the same trip. Percy tried to use this as an excuse to leave them all behind, but Sally was adamant. Reyna and Frank both promised to reimburse Sally for the expense of the tickets while Jason squirmed uncomfortably behind them, no doubt thinking of how much extra he would have to withdraw from the temple of Janus. Then they were off to the first stop.

The bus stop was right down the street, and it was a thirty minute drive to the stop where they would have to switch busses. No one seemed to mind eight teenagers on the bus together. There were tons of people who looked like they were on vacation; smothered in sunscreen, cameras dangling from their necks, and leafing through guide books.

Annabeth could not help but feel angry at them. All her life Annabeth had wanted to be a hero, to be a champion of the gods. She had thought of her heritage as a great privilege, a gift that made her special, and in many ways it did and she had not stopped wanting to be a hero. Indeed, after surviving two divine wars Annabeth was considered by many to be a hero already. But even now when she was trying to take it easy there was no peace. All these tourists took it for granted that they could easily walk away from their lives and be untroubled for however long they stayed. For Annabeth, the trouble always found her.

At least Percy’s mood seemed to be improving. He and Jason seemed to click, and the more Jason asked about the buildings they passed, the more Percy smiled. Hazel seemed to be doing the opposite. She had eaten like Arion at breakfast, but now on the bus she seemed to be regretting it. At least her misery was not alone; Frank had crammed himself into a seat next to her, and looked only fractionally better. Reyna was next to him, and since Hazel was not talking, she and Frank were deep in discussion, probably about Camp Jupiter. Whenever the conversation got too intense, Frank’s grip on his dufflebag tightened. Percy had somehow recovered all of their weapons from the seafloor and had stashed it all in the bag.

Annabeth sat next to Piper and Nico. Nico kept to himself, as usual, but Piper seemed awfully talkative today.

“So, some vacation, right?” Piper’s eyes sparkled. Despite her sincerest efforts, Annabeth was unable to deduce Piper’s true eye color or the mechanism through which it constantly changed.

Annabeth shrugged. “Pretty standard for us, wouldn’t you say?”

Piper laughed, and a little Charmspeak slipped out. An old man reading the newspaper began to chuckle. Based on his wife’s reaction, the article he was reading was not particularly humorous.

“But isn’t it crazy though? I mean, the Greek and Roman thing is weird enough, but at least they’re mostly the same. This whole new set of gods living here and we never knew!”

Annabeth smirked. _If only she knew about Magnus or Sadie…_

Piper continued. “And breakfast was crazy too! I never thought spam could taste so good!”

Annabeth was a bit puzzled. Piper was never one for small talk, except as a lead up for something bigger. She smiled and nodded, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“It was a feast!” Piper gave Annabeth a sidelong glance. Annabeth calculated that other shoe was now inches from the floor. “But not just for the food. There was plenty of eye-candy too.”

The other shoe hit the floor and Annabeth had a sudden and terrifying moment of clarity. “Piper, no.”

“Oh, come on, Annabeth!” Piper gave her a gentle shove. “Every time he reached for the syrup you blushed, not that I blame you. I mean, look at him!”

Against her will, Annabeth’s gave found Percy, just as the bus turned and sunlight lit up his face. He was laughing at something Jason said, and it was beautiful.

“See, look! You’re doing it again!” Piper was grinning ear to ear at Annabeth’s expense. Immediately, Annabeth looked away and both hands slapped to her face to cover her cheeks.

“Shut up, Piper,” Annabeth put as much menace as she could into it, but it was hard to do considering how her initial blush was turning into a blush of embarrassment.

Piper’s voice took on a sing song-y quality. “ _You swoon, you sigh, why deny it?_ ”

Even Nico seemed a bit amused. His dark eyes twinkled with mirth as he watched Annabeth try her best to shrink into her clothes.

“Piper, by all the gods if you keep talking like this we’ll have to carry you off the bus.”

Piper stopped talking, but she was still smiling.

After hopping onto the next bus it was an hour long ride. For Hazel’s sake, she and Frank managed to snag the front seats. Nico and Reyna joined them, which left Annabeth, Piper, Jason, and Percy take over the bench in the back. Rather than be a good friend, Piper decided to be a traitor and sit down at the window-seat with Jason on her arm. Percy sat next to Jason, so of course Annabeth had to sit next to Percy. She tried to impress on Piper the depth of this betrayal, but Piper just smiled at her.

After another thirty minutes, Honolulu surrendered and the forest took over. Green surrounded them on both sides, endless acres of trees, broad-leafed plants, with only the occasional colorful flower to break it up. It looked like something out of an animated movie. Sitting next to Percy was not as big a problem as she thought it might be. As long as she looked out the window she could keep herself from blushing. Percy, though, seemed to not get the memo.

“So, Jason’s the son of Jupiter and Piper is the daughter of Aphrodite. Who’s your divine parent? Ares?”

Annabeth tried her best not to looked scandalized and kept her eyes fixed firmly on the window. “What makes you say that?”

“You seem pretty war-like,” he replied behind her. “I’ve been flipped before, but never quite so hard.”

She could see his smile reflected in the glass, bright white and lopsided, as she replied. “Maybe I’m a child of Aphrodite too, but I just see the beauty of combat.”

Percy laughed behind her. “That could be true, you’re definitely pretty enough.”

Annabeth had been called “princess” or “scary” before, but only very rarely pretty. It was so singularly unexpected that she could not stop herself from turning around to look at Percy. He was smiling at her, beautifully lopsided and dopey at the same time. His eyebrows were turned up, his green eyes half-lidded, and an unmistakable red coloring his cheeks.

Almost immediately, Annabeth started blushing too. Behind Percy, Annabeth could see Piper giving her a thumbs up. Rather than accept defeat, Annabeth turned back to the window and seethed. Piper would pay _dearly_ for this.

* * *

 

The bus stopped for gas and most passengers took the opportunity to stretch their legs. Hazel could not be persuaded to move from her seat, and was almost as green as the foliage. The rest of them went into the convenience store to pick up snacks, but Annabeth elected to take a quick walk. It helped to clear her head. This high up the mountain it was beginning to cool, and the damp air washed through her lungs like a blast of spring water through her mouth.

As she moved, Annabeth could see behind the convenience store. There was a tree, gnarled and twisted, but covered in leaves. In its branches Annabeth could see a shape, concealed by the shadows. It looked like a large bird. Perhaps against her better judgement, Annabeth got closer. After a few steps she was close enough to make out individual leaves on the tree, but the foliage was too thick for the light to shine on the bird.

A few more steps, and she was close enough that if she stretched out an arm she could touch it. Then she stepped on a twig. It snapped loudly under her foot. The bird turned, burning yellow eyes wide and with a loud scratching screech.

_FOLLOW THE MARK OF ATHENA. AVENGE ME OR LEAVE ME, YOU ARE NO CHILD OF MINE._

Annabeth took several steps back, a cold sweat breaking out over her skin. It had been months since she had sent the Athena Parthenos to Camp Halfblood. She knew she should still not be hearing this every time she saw an owl; her mother had praised her and even fought with her in the Gigantomachy, but things had never been the same as they were before. Athena had not spoken since then, leaving Annabeth with only the nightmares and the visions.

“That’s a _pueo_.” Percy’s voice came from behind her. She turned and saw him approaching, holding a tube of salt and vinegar Pringles.

“It’s an owl,” Annabeth corrected him, hoping that he would not come too close and see her sweating.

Percy shrugged. “Well, we call it _pueo_ here. They’re really rare on Oahu. You’re lucky to even see one, and it _called_ to you. I’ve never seen that before. Maybe it likes you.”

Annabeth did not deign to comment on that. She turned on heel and walked back to the bus, making sure that she would not have to sit next to Percy again.

When the bus finally stopped in Kaneohe Annabeth thought they were close.

Oh how wrong she was.

Aunty Dawn’s house was an almost thirty minute walk from the bus stop, and the path seemed to go straight up the mountainside. It struck Annabeth as odd that Percy did not offer to let them stay in Kaneohe and let him trek up the mountainside alone. Small comfort; her legs felt like they were on fire, and the tropical heat did nothing to assuage the ache in her lungs. All of them were sweating to various degrees.

Eventually, Percy lead them off the path and into the green depths. Five minutes later, he stopped and gestured out with his hand. “We made it, guys. This is Aunty Dawn’s house.”

The trees opened up into a small clearing, in the center of which was a square house, with bright wooden walls and a slate tiled roof. Under the eaves a wide patio stretched seemingly all the way around the building. Smoke was gently drifting up from the opposite side of the roof. The whole thing was built into the side of a hill, the walls disappearing into the grass and soil.

At this point, anywhere would have been fine for Annabeth as long as it had a chair to sit on.

The started walking again, and Frank brought himself alongside Percy. “So, this Aunty Dawn, she’s your actual aunt?”

“Oh, no,” Percy smiled back at him. “I just call them Aunty. They’ve been around since I was a baby, and they knew my mother way before then.”

Frank raised an eyebrow. “How many of them are there?”

Percy gave him a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“You keep using ‘they,’” Frank explained.

“Oh, that,” Percy took on a more serious tone. “Aunty Dawn is a _mahu_ . It means that they are in the middle, they have both a male and female spirit. It’s small _kine_ hard to use pronouns for that. Some use either ‘she’ or ‘he,’ some even go back and forth, but Aunty Dawn always used ‘they.’”

Frank nodded with understanding, and the continued to walk, reaching the foot of the patio and climbing up a creaky set of stairs. When she reached the top, Annabeth saw a small man sitting against the wall. Not small as in short, but small as in only about three feet tall if he were standing up straight. His head was crowned with green leaves, woven into his curly hair, and his skin was dark brown like teak. He was looking at a pair of tools in his lap. One was a simple but small rod, with carvings working their way around the sides. The other was about the same size, but looked like a hoe with a spiky edge.

When Percy’s head cleared the top of the stairs, the small man stood up immediately. “Percy! What happened? Dawn isn’t telling me anything, just that bad things are coming and that you would visit today.”

Percy nodded grimly. “Well, they don’t call them a _kahuna kaula_ for nothing. Here I am, but I’m not sure how bad things will be getting, G-man.”

“G-man?” Hazel summited the stairs last. Annabeth found it a little funny that finally the seven of them had found someone who was shorter than Hazel.

The green leaves in his hair rustled as the small man looked past Percy and regarded the seven of them. “Dawn did not mention that you would be bringing guests. Who are these people?”

“Sorry, introductions,” Percy moved behind the small man and put a hand on his shoulder. “Guys, this is Grover. He’s a _menehune_ and he’s helped me out of more scrapes than I can count.”

“ _Menehune_?” Frank mused behind her. “I think I know that word. It was on a tour-book about somewhere in Kaneohe. Something about a temple there.”

Grover smiled and puffed up his chest. “That’s Ulupo Heiau. My people built that temple thousands of years ago, as well as all the other temples and tons of other stuff. Statues, fishponds, breakwaters, you name it! No human has ever come close to our skill with stone-work and crafts.”

“If that’s true, why haven’t we heard of _menehune_ before?” Reyna asked.

“You mean aside from centuries of colonization and cultural destruction?” Grover’s eyes were scanning their faces as he spoke. They were dark, but Annabeth could see traces of green, like the forest understory at twilight. “We like to keep to ourselves.”

Grover’s eyes suddenly locked with Annabeth’s, and his lip curled into a snarl. “People like _her_ chase us into the mountains.”

All eyes turned to Annabeth. She would have blushed if she were not so confused. “Look, Grover, I just got here a few days ago. I have never chased _menehune_ into the mountains.”

Grover blinked. “So you’re not one of Paupueo’s servants?”

Annabeth shook her head to say no.

“Oh, well I’m sorry,” Grover inclined his head a bit. “Paupueo sends owls after us if we get rowdy, and you have an owlish look.”

“I get that a lot,” Annabeth hoped the shiver she just felt would not show.

“Grover, stop bothering our guests and bring them inside.”

The new voice came from within the darkened doorway. Grover immediately lept into action with a quick, “Yes, kahuna.” He bowed at the waist and gestured for the eight teenagers to come inside. Percy went in first. Then Annabeth took a calming breath and followed him into the dark.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. @yourozness notes: "Most of the houses people live in are old and run down. Like a very well loved sweater. It's always a bit dirty and it's small, but it's a home and always has that home like feel. That's the aloha spirit."
> 
> 2\. Concerning crossing the island in 30, @yourozness says: "Okay so this is only if there's no traffic. traffic in Hawaii can be HELLA bad and it can take up to two hours because you're just stuck sitting there."
> 
> 3: @yourozness: "Lol I never realized spam could taste bad until i got to the mainland"
> 
> Next chapter will be a Frank Zhang POV. You'll love it, I promise!


	4. Frank I

After their first night, Frank had abandoned the idea of a restful Hawaiian vacation. Now, barely 24 hours after arriving, he was in the midst of another mess that might threaten the world. Now, as he stood on the patio, about to enter into the home of a powerful figure, he considered whether or not listening to Jason ever again would be in his best interest.

Frank was not sure what to expect when he entered the kahuna’s house, but after bending low under the doorway he was surprised by what he saw. The interior of the house was dark and filled with potted plants. Even though there was no wind, the leaves seemed to twitch as if they were alive. All around them the walls seemed to seethe. On closer inspection, Frank saw that the walls themselves were not moving, but they were simply covered in geckos. The small lizards were almost dripping off the walls, and sometimes even off the plants. They regarded him with cold eyes, but the way that they stared at him seemed way too intense to be regular animals. 

In the middle of the floor was a small fire, barely more than embers. The smoke was drifting up through a hole in the roof, but it smelled like a barbeque; rich woodsmoke and charcoal. Beyond it sat Aunty Dawn. If they stood up, Frank doubted they would be much taller than Hazel, but they were at least as wide as Frank’s shoulders and much rounder. Dark eyes scrutinized them all under thick lashes, and wavy hair fell down past their shoulders. 

Frank might have thought it odd to see such a revered and powerful figure wearing a loose Hawaiian t-shirt and shorts, but after interacting with the gods for so long nothing seemed overly strange to him anymore.

Percy moved forward until he was standing right in front of Aunty Dawn. Then he dropped to his knees, pressed his forehead to theirs and his nose next to theirs. Frank thought they were about to kiss each other, but after a few deep breaths they separated and Percy spoke. 

“Aunty Dawn, great  _ kahuna kaula _ , I come seeking your guidance.”

Aunty Dawn shifted to their feet. “I dreamt that you would come to me, Perseus Jackson, and I dreamt of your companions, but I did not think they would be so powerful.”

Their eyes suddenly snapped to Jason. He seemed to be rooted to the spot, frozen under the kahuna’s gaze. “Child, tell me, who are you?”

“My name is Jason Grace,” he replied, eyes wide. Frank could not tell if he was speaking under his own power or if the kahuna was coercing him. “I am the son of Jupiter. I serve as Pontifex Maximus of New Rome.”

Aunty Dawn smirked. “I know Jupiter. Zeus was always courteous enough to stay on the mainland, but Jupiter tried to come to Hawai’i. I think Venus even birthed a child here.”

Reyna nodded. “His name is Mike Kahale. He’s a good man, a good Roman.”

“Venus was out of line to even come,” Aunty Dawn sniffed. “I made sure that they would not return. Their  _ mana _ was affecting the islands too much.”

Percy gaped at them. “You chased  _ gods _ away? Why didn’t you tell me? How did you do it?”

Aunty Dawn waved their hand like they were swatting away an annoying fly. “Another time, Perseus. We have much more dire concerns. What happened last night?”

Percy elaborated on the events of that night, but he mentioned some things that Frank had never heard before. He mentioned someone named Keuakapo, and said that Na Maka had stolen his mana. When he got to their part in events, he kept it short and did not seem to blame them too much. 

As he finished, Aunty Dawn’s expression grew more troubled. “This is quite serious indeed.”

“What are we going to do about it, Aunty?” Percy leaned forward, his face turned yellow by the flames and eyes neon green. “Have you seen anything in your dreams?”

Dawn shook their head. “No, Perseus, the gods have not visited me in my sleep. We must go to them. Grover!”

The menehune leapt into the firelight. “Yes, kahuna?”

“Bring me the  _ awa _ root.”

Percy gasped. “Aunty, are you sure? I’ve never used  _ awa _ before.”

Dawn nodded. “It is necessary. I am sure that the gods will be more than willing to talk with us. How many of you are going on the quest?”

“All of us,” Frank answered Dawn, but his eyes were on Grover. The menehune was standing near the wall, pulling a bulbous ball of root with numerous tendril-like roots stemming from it out of a mason jar full of water. 

Aunty Dawn’s brows furrowed. “You cannot all partake of the  _ awa _ , though. Your  _ mana _ is too strongly connected with your gods. If you joined us it would not turn out right.”

“ _ Mana _ ?” Nico leaned forward. “You mean like the magical energy in Mythomagic?”

Percy stiffened and looked to Aunty Dawn, who heaved an exasperated sigh.

“Son, listen here,” they said. “Where do you think they got the word from?  _ Haoles _ have been appropriating Polynesian cultures for a long time, and one of the most common is how they treat  _ mana _ .”

Nico shrank back. “I'm sorry, I didn’t know.”

“It’s alright,” Aunty Dawn replied. “Most people are ignorant of this. Percy, would you care to explain to our guests?”

Percy looked somewhat relieved when he turned to face Frank and the others. Aunty Dawn probably had quite the temper. “OK, so  _ mana _ is the life force of the world, the whole universe. Everyone has  _ mana _ in them, and objects and places have it too, but  _ mana _ is what connects us to world around us and is where our strength comes from. You all have the  _ mana _ of your gods in you, can’t you feel it?”

“In a way,” Annabeth said. “We call it an aura.”

“Aura,  _ mana _ , it’s all the same,” Percy continued. “You all have very strong  _ mana _ , probably from all the times you have fought with monsters and stuff. That’s one way to gain  _ mana _ , through violence.”

“What’s the other way?” Piper inquired.

Percy blushed a little bit. “Well … love is the most PG way to say it…”

“Enough said,” Reyna came to their rescue. Frank was pretty sure he was blushing too. “So, why would our  _ mana _ interfere with your ceremony?”

“Well, your  _ mana  _ is so connected to your gods,” Percy said. “If we used the  _ awa _ root to talk with our gods, your  _ mana _ is so strong that we might get pulled off course. We would wind up on Mount Olympus, or the Underworld, but only half-way there because that was not where we were trying to go. Whatever we might hear would be too mixed up to understand.”

“Precisely,” Aunty Dawn proclaimed. Grover had arrived, handing the roots to Dawn. “Now, because you are all going on this quest, some of you will have to join us, and one of you will have to prepare the  _ awa _ root.”

“Prepare the  _ awa  _ root?” Piper asked. “Frank’s the best cook…”

“You don’t have to cook it,” Aunty Dawn was scanning their faces intently. They seemed to be looking not just at the demigods, but around them and through them. “You must chew it into a fine pulp. Your  _ mana _ and saliva will activate the root so that we may commune with the gods. Is anyone here a virgin?”

The awkward silence that filled the room was palpable. Frank felt sure that his face was turning as red as the coals in the fire pit. 

“Isn’t that a very personal question,” Frank hoped at the very least his face was not as red as Jason’s. 

“It’s a very important question,” Aunty Dawn was still scrutinizing them. “If the person who activates the root is not a virgin, we will receive too much  _ mana _ from both the chewer and their lover. Then communing with the gods will be difficult. I ask again, who will chew the root for us?”

Nico raised his hand, but Dawn rejected him immediately, as his  _ mana _ was too strong with the Underworld to begin with. 

Reyna raised her hand next. Aunty Dawn considered this for a moment, then nodded. Grover crossed the space and handed Reyna the ball of roots.

“So...is there any special way to do this?” Reyna held the roots gingerly, as if it might suddenly come to life and bite her. 

“Just chew it, then spit it out into this bowl,” Dawn instructed, handing her a kitschy ceramic bowl decorated with a hula girl. “Be warned, your mouth will become numb and you will have visions after the task is complete.”

Reyna’s face was set. She took an inordinately large bite out of the largest part of the root and began to chew. As soon as she started her eyes widened and she seemed to have trouble keeping it down. Still, she kept on chewing. Then she spat out a mass of pale pulp before taking another huge bite and chewing that as well.

Percy raised his eyebrows. “She’s hardcore, man.”

Frank nodded appreciatively. “You have no idea.”

By the time she had finished chewing all the roots, Reyna could barely sit upright. She did not spit out the last bit of pulp so much as her jaw went slack and the goop happened to fall into the bowl. Grover grabbed the bowl and handed it to Dawn before dragging Reyna away, gently laying her head onto a pillow in the corner of the room. 

“Is she going to be alright?” Jason’s face was so tight with worry, Frank thought it might snap off his head. 

“She will be fine,” Dawn said. They were mixing pulp with water and placing it into a coconut husk. “Although, I have never performed this ceremony with a Roman before. It will be interesting to know where she goes in her trance.”

Using their fingers to hold the husks in place, they squeezed out liquid, pouring most of it into a large cup about the size of a stein. 

“We are ready to begin,” Dawn declared. Then Dawn pointed at Hazel, Piper, and Frank. “You three, come here and drink with Percy and me.”

Jason half-way stood up to object. A look from Dawn froze him in place. “I know you wish to take the journey yourself, but your  _ mana _ is too strong. These three are the best candidates to join us.”

Jason opened his mouth once, then he closed it and sat back down. Piper leaned in and planted the sweetest, gentlest kiss on his lips. Frank had been watching them make lovey-dovey eyes at each other long enough to know that this was a “don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” kiss. Then Piper stood and walked over to sit next to Dawn. Percy, and Hazel followed, and Frank brought up the rear. 

When they all were seated, Dawn seemed satisfied. They raised the cup to their lips and took a drink. Then they spoke. 

“ _ Akua _ , gods of the isles, hear us and aid us in this hour.”

Dawn passed the cup to Percy. He took a drink and said:

“Na Maka has moved against the safety of the people. She has some of Keuakapo’s  _ mana _ , but we do not know what she means to do with this.”

Percy passed the cup to Piper. She gave a confused look at Percy.

“Just talk about what we need to do,” Percy explained. “We’re inviting the gods into our conversation.”

Piper nodded, then took a drink. “We come to you, gods of the isles, as outsiders but we have no ill intentions.”

Piper passed the cup to Hazel. She drank and spoke. “We unwittingly interfered with Percy as he tried to stop Na Maka’s plan.”

She passed the cup to Frank. The liquid inside was pale and translucent. It seemed to glow slightly in the dark firelight. He pulled the cup to his lips and drank. The taste was both acrid and sweet, a little bit salty, and a little bit like a kiss. He swallowed it and spoke. 

“As Piper said, we have no ill will, we just want to correct our mistake.”

He passed the cup back to Aunty Dawn, and he noticed that the geckos seemed to have a stronger interest in them now. They had stopped moving and every one of them was staring at them. 

Dawn drank and repeated their phrase, passing the cup back to Percy. He repeated his process as well, as they all did. When Frank had taken his second drink, the gecko closest to him suddenly spoke, with a loud “ _ gecko _ .”

Frank jumped, but he did not spill any of the drink. He passed it back to Dawn as more geckos began to vocalize. 

“ _ Gecko, gecko, gecko _ ,” they said.

The cup made its third round, and soon all the geckos were croaking, louder and louder each time they spoke. 

“ _ Gecko, gecko,gecko _ ,” they said.

The smoke wafting up from the fire seemed to be moving to the side. It was curling towards them, filling Frank’s nostrils with the thick scent. He took another drink as the gecko’s song became almost thunderously loud. 

“ _ GECKO, GECKO, GECKO _ ,” they roared.

The walls were shifting, the ground surging underfoot. Jason, Nico, and Annabeth faded away, but Frank could not remember why he cared about them anymore. Something else was consuming his mind. It was his worry for the quest, his fear that his actions had caused a great harm, his desire to make things right. It surged through his head like waves on the sea. 

“ _ GECKO, GECKO, GET GO, GET GOING _ ,”

The geckos’ voices had turned into one thunderous voice. 

“ _ GET GOING, GET GOING, GET GOING _ ,” it said.

Suddenly the churning thoughts were actual waves. Cold, black, water surrounded him, and Na Maka’s face loomed out of the darkness. 

“ _ Soon, Pele, _ ” she said, her smile wicked and wide. “ _ Soon the storm shall come and douse your fire forever _ .”

“ _ GET GOING, GET GOING, GET GOING _ ,” called the voice.

The water turned gray and fell from the sky. It was warm and wet, but it was falling like tears from the eyes of a man. He was round and rosy cheeked, his waist wrapped in leaves so green and bright they looked like they were growing out of his skin, which was brown and rich like farmland. His tears fell like rain, and he wailed, clutching at his head, where his hair was short and choppy as if someone had cut it off with a pair of scissors with one stroke. 

“ _ Forgive me, Pele _ ,” he cried over a peal of thunder. “ _ Forgive me, Na Maka O Kaha’i makes me do this, and I cannot stop her! She has my  _ mana _ and I cannot stop this rain! Pele, please forgive me! _ ”

“ _ GET GOING, GET GOING, GET GOING _ ,” called the voice.

The smell of woodsmoke became the smell of pure, hair-curling heat, and now Frank was standing on black earth, sharp and hot enough to both cut and cauterize his foot at one time. Molten lava washed around him like rivers, cherry red and glowing even in the light of day. Ahead of him was a fountain of fire, burbling and seething like a kettle on the stove. In the shimmering heat Frank saw a woman, down on her knees. The hot wet rain returned and she steamed and screamed in pain. 

“ _ Oh, sister! Why do you make Keuakapo your slave? Why would you kill me? Why do you make the humans suffer for your hate? Why!? Why!? WHY!? _ ”

“ _ GET GOING, GET GOING, GET GOING _ ,” called the voice.

She vanished from Frank’s sight and then the black sea rushed over the land, dousing the lava and turning it black before washing it away. Soon there was no land left at all, just a vast, endless, cold darkness of water, and in the dark he could hear Na Maka laughing.

“ _ GET GOING, GET GOING, GET GOING _ ,” called the voice.

Na Maka’s laughter faded away, and Frank saw a new place. Flowers crowned all the trees, white sand shifted under his feet. Green leaves swayed in a gentle breeze and calm, crystal green waters lapped up on the shore. In front of him was a woman, seated on a fallen tree. Her skin was dark and hair like coconut fiber, falling in tresses down her back and dripping impossibly bright yellow flower petals. When she opened her eyes, Frank felt warmth and happiness fill him and the ache and pain of the cold and the fire ran away. 

“ _ GET GOING, GET GOING, GET GOING _ ,” she said. “ _ Go to Moloka’i. Come find me here, and I shall help you save the islands. _ ”

The sea rushed around his feet, and Frank saw a man rise from the water. His skin glittered like fish-scales, his loincloth bright like corals. He smiled at them, and though his teeth were pointed like a shark’s, Frank felt no menace. 

“ _ GET GOING, GET GOING, GET GOING, _ ” he said. “ _ Go to Moloka’i. I will protect you in my waters. You have only three days. Go now, my son. _ ”

Frank suddenly recognized those eyes. Sea-green and fire bright. They were Percy’s eyes. 

“Frank! Frank, wake up!”

Then it was dark. Frank was on his back, laying on a dirt floor, looking up at the roof of Aunty Dawn’s house. His body felt heavy, like he had gained a hundred pounds on each limb, but he managed to sit upright. Around him, Hazel, Piper, Percy, and Aunty Dawn were sitting up as well. Nico was swatting weakly at his face, perhaps trying to wake him up faster, but they were as light as butterfly wingbeats. 

Annabeth was attending to Piper, Jason to Hazel. Grover was patting Percy’s back, congratulating him on something it seemed like. Frank’s ears were not working properly, every sound was muted. Aunty Dawn smiled weakly as they looked at the group, dark circles forming under their eyes. Behind all of them, Reyna stirred from her bed as well, though she seemed to be having an easier time of it than they were. 

Percy flashed them all a weak smile. “Some vacation for you guys, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. From @yourozness: [Percy's greeting to Dawn is] called a honi, [the shared breaths are] an exchange of mana and ancient greeting.


	5. Frank II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, you guys! The semester has been heating up for me and @yourozness, so forgive us for any further late chapters. I have also updated a few things on the previous chapters as well, so if you want you can check there too.

Aunty Dawn had told Frank that there would be no permanent effect from the  _ awa  _ root. They told him that after a few minutes his mind would clear and the gods would leave him.

Five minutes later, and while Frank was not sure if the gods had left, the spinning was still there for sure. 

Nico had always known Frank was not dead, but the small pale boy had only just stopped swatting at his face. Hazel and Piper seemed similarly groggy, although Piper was conscious enough to ask Jason what happened while the rest of them were out. 

“It was crazy,” Jason explained to her. “You guys started drinking, then the geckos went nuts! They just screamed ‘gecko’ the whole time, it was driving me crazy. I tried to wake up Hazel, but her eyes were completely white! Not like they were rolled back, just completely covered. Then all the geckos were quiet and you all woke up.”

“How long were we out?” Hazel was rubbing her hands over her face, perhaps checking to see if her eyes felt normal. 

“About an hour,” Annabeth supplied. Frank’s spinning head got even worse; it certainly did not feel like an hour had passed. A few minutes at most. 

Ever to business, Annabeth asked: “What did you see?”

Frank shook his head as he tried to remember. “Na Maka has control over someone. Keuakapo, right?”

“ He’s a rain god ,” Percy supplied from next to Dawn. His eyes while, not focused completely, seemed much sharper than all of theirs. “ He controls the night rains, and Na Maka has stolen his  _ mana _ so that she can control him. ”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Piper agreed. “But there’s something I don’t get. Na Maka said she was going to douse Pele’s Fire. Who is Pele?”

“Pele is the greatest of goddesses,” Dawn’s voice was clear and authoritative, completely recovered from the  _ awa _ root. “Have any of you heard her story?”

The smothering silence was all Dawn needed to confirm that none of the demigods knew what they were talking about. 

Dawn heaved a sigh before continuing. “At the beginning of time, Pele lived in Kuaihelani; it was a land that floated above the water in the clouds. She lived with her family and had many siblings, the oldest of which was Na Maka o Kahai’i. She kept the hearth of her father and mother well, and never left its side. She was always so close to the hearth that she started to become fire itself. Her devotion pleased her parents so much that Na Maka feared Pele would eclipse her in power.

“One day, Na Maka lost her temper and decided to kill her sister. However, Pele was protected in Kauaihelani by their parents. Instead, Na Maka convinced Pele to take a canoe to visit Tahiti. Then, once Pele was alone in the water, Na Maka would drown her.”

“The gods can die?!” Annabeth’s eyes were wide. 

“Tahiti was a resort for gods?”

A beat of silence followed and all eyes turned to face Piper. 

She shrugged. “My dad took me there, once. It’s pretty nice.”

Dawn cleared their throat. “Yes, Tahiti is nice. So nice, in fact, that several of Pele’s brothers and sisters came along with her, but Na Maka was consumed by her anger and jealousy. As soon as the canoe hit the water the waves churned and began to swamp the canoe, while the wind blew them far away from Kuaihelani. Luckily, they managed to escape, but Na Maka was never far behind. 

“Unable to return home, Pele and her siblings decided to create a new home. So Pele concentrated and used her fire to bring molten lava up from the depths of the Earth and create a new island. Na Maka was not so easily deterred. She sent massive waves that washed over the first small island that Pele created, hardening the lava before it could grow too large. So Pele fled with her siblings and tried again, only to be frustrated by Na Maka again. 

“Seven times Pele tried to raise an island large enough to protect her from Na Maka, and seven times Na Maka’s waves washed over the land. Finally, on the eighth spot, Pele gave all her strength to the fire and raised an island so great that even Na Maka could not surmount it. With all her strength spent, Pele’s body was destroyed. Her spirit now lives in Kilauea, and while she lives her islands survive.”

Aunty Dawn finished and stared at them all expectantly. Whatever they were expecting, it did not happen because their face soured. 

“Come come, children! Think! What happens when lava hits water?”

“It hardens and turns into rock.” Jason answered, brows furrowed with thought.

“Exactly. Is a rock alive?” 

“ No ,” Percy’s eyes began to widen. “ No, Aunty, you don’t think… ”

“I do think,” Dawn nodded seriously.

Frank felt even more confused than before. Water turns lava to rock, and rock is dead, but what did that have to do with a sea goddess kidnapping a rain god?

_ Rain god _ .

Frank suddenly understood. “If Na Maka has control over the rain, then she can make it rain forever, can’t she?”

Dawn smiled. “You understand now, don’t you?”

“She’ll make it rain and rain until  _ all _ the lava is turned into stone,” Frank continued to spell out his thoughts as they came. He could see the realization dawning on his friend’s faces as he continued. “Then, when it’s all cold, Pele will die, for real.”

“Bingo,” Dawn confirmed.

“Then what happens to Hawai’i?” Frank was almost to afraid to ask.

Dawn’s eyes bored into Frank’s skull. “You saw it in the vision, boy.”

Frank remembered it in the vision. The cold, crushing black of Na Maka’s infinite ocean. 

“By the gods…” Piper’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “We have to stop her.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

Frank felt his heart rate skyrocket as Reyna’s voice came from directly behind him. Her voice was strong and loud, like she was ready to fight Na Maka on the spot. All eyes turned to face her.

“How long do we have to complete the mission?” Where Reyna was concerned, there was no such thing as a question. Just an order to answer. 

“The man in the vision said we only have three days,” Hazel replied. Her eyes seemed to burn gold in the firelight. 

Reyna nodded. “Then there’s no time to lose. We shall depart at once.”

Percy suddenly lost a few shades from his skin. “ Wait, wait, we can’t go out today !”

Reyna’s dark eyes fixed on Percy. “Why not?”

“ It’s dangerous on these islands for people like us after dark ,” Percy answered, his tone was deadly serious. “ Believe me, we need to be safely inside by sunset or this quest ends before it begins .”

Annabeth quirked an eyebrow at him. “You have seen us work before, Seaweed Brain. We can handle ourselves. Besides, Dawn said we could all go on this quest.”

Percy shook his head. “ No, no one can handle themselves against this. We just have to wait until tomorrow to start .”

“Be calm, Perseus.” Dawn placed a large hand on his shoulder. “If you leave now and use The Stairway to Heaven you can be in Kaneohe before nightfall. I’m sure Danny will loan you a boat to use, then you can be out to sea and on your way.”

Percy still looked a bit riled, but Dawn’s words seemed to have calmed him down. He nodded, then rose to his feet and started for the door without a word, half running all the way. Frank surged to his feet to keep up.

Stepping outside was blinding. The sun was noticeably lower in the sky, but nowhere close to sunset. Percy was pacing anxiously on the patio, however. Frank was no stranger to worry, given that any time he was outside the borders of Camp Jupiter or Camp Half-blood monsters could hone in on his scent from miles away. Still, the amount of anxiety Percy was showing seemed extreme. They were only a thirty minute walk from town, after all, and most of that was down hill. 

“I saw them, Frank.”

For the second time, Frank had to restrain the urge to jump as Reyna’s voice appeared unexpectedly behind him. 

“Saw who?” Frank asked as he turned around to face Reyna.

“I saw Camp Jupiter,” Reyna’s eyes were shining. “They’ve noticed that we’re missing, and both camps are working together to find us!”

“Are you serious?” Frank felt the smile growing on his face. 

Reyna nodded enthusiastically. “They say that the Iris messages can’t find us, to right now they’re organizing a rescue mission!”

Frank let out a guffaw. “Who’d’ve thought? Greeks and Romans working together? All we needed to do was kidnap the senior leadership of both camps!”

Reyna laughed at that. “Maybe next time we should tie Lupa and Chiron together and leave them in the middle of nowhere!”

Their riotous laughter was cut short when Percy’s voice cut through. “ I hate to break the Praetor humor, but we  _ do  _ have somewhere to be! ”

“Relax, Percy!” Grover emerged from the house with Nico. All of them, except for Dawn, were outside now. “You guys have plenty of time to get to safety. If you want, I could tell you about some places to visit in Kaneohe. There’s a nice, clean motel on the beach that offers pretty good rates.”

Percy blinked. “ Aren’t you coming with us ?”

The menehune shook his head, the green leaves rustling in his hair. “No, Dawn wants me to stay here. Something about ‘eight is company, nine is a crowd.’”

“ But I’ve never been on a quest without you. What am I going to do if I run into some obscure creature that I’ve never heard of before? ” 

For the first time since Frank had seen him, Percy looked genuinely sad. Frank might have imagined it, but Percy’s eyes seemed to have lost some color. They were green-gray like a storm-surge. He had seen it before in Dawn’s house, when Percy’s eyes seemed almost luminous in the dark, but Frank had just assumed it was a trick of the firelight. Now, though, in the direct sunlight, Frank was beginning to wonder if it was something more.  

Grover seemed oblivious. “I know you, Perce. There’s nothing out there that you don’t know or can’t handle. Besides, you’ve got plenty of new friends to keep you company.”

Friends. Frank had never considered that the seven of them and Percy might become friends. Except for maybe Jason. 

Percy’s eyes softened and he put a hand on Grover’s shoulders. “ Look, man, stay safe, OK? If the worst should happen… ”

“I’ll take care of Paul, Sally, and Leilani,” Grover assured him. “But you better get going. If you stick around here too long, I might get convinced to follow you despite Dawn’s orders anyway.”

Percy smiled at Grover, then he looked up at the rest of them. “ You guys ready to hele on over ?”

They nodded, and Percy led the way as they stepped off the porch. Just as they reached the treeline, Gover called after them again. 

“Come back in one piece, Percy! I bet the  _ uhi _ from this quest will be my greatest yet!”

Percy laughed aloud, his eyes a glittering turquoise again. “I’ll do my best, G-man!”

Then the hut was lost behind a wall of green.

The Stairway to Heaven that Dawn referred to was purportedly a shortcut back to town. Nico had asked if it were an easier way to get down compared to the almost vertical hike that they had taken to Dawn’s house. Percy had laughed and said that the Stairway was so steep it was illegal. Frank thought he was joking until Percy announced that they had reached the trail. 

It was not so much a trail as it was a slightly-flattened spot on the very tip of the massive ridges that swept down to Kaneohe. A foot misplaced on either side, and you would not stop falling until you hit the valley below. Even the trees seemed to be holding on for dear-life, their roots strangling the rocks with a death-grip. Percy assured them that if they did fall they probably would not die, but straying from the path might lead them into the Spirit World, and that would be the real trouble. Every time gust of wind crossed the path, Frank felt his heart leap into his throat. That said, everything was going pretty well. No one fell, no one even stumbled.

Then the path abruptly dropped away. Frank was wondering where they had made a wrong turn, which would have been quite a feat considering that the path had no turns at all, but Percy assured them that there was a rope that was used to traverse this part of the trail. 

Regrettably, Percy only found the frayed stump of the rope on their side. 

He stared at it angrily for a moment, as if the pure force of his rage would make it grow out. 

“ I don’t suppose any of you brought twenty feet of rope with you ?” he asked.

“It’s no big deal,” Nico called from the middle of the pack. “Frank can get us over, right?”

Percy raised an eyebrow. “It’ll be hard enough to climb down, I don’t think Frank should be carrying anyone.”

Annabeth usually had the smug-I’m-right-you’re-wrong look, but Nico was making an impressive show of his own. “Percy, you have no idea what you’re dealing with. Frank, I think a Roman Eagle will be good for this situation.”

“I think you’re right,” Frank agreed. “But it might take a few trips. Talons or back?”

“Talons,” Annabeth said after a beat of thought. “That way you don’t have to land all the way and we don’t have to risk falling when we get off.”

“ I still have no idea what you guys are talking about, ” Percy said. 

Jason wrapped his arm around Percy’s shoulder with a knowing smirk. “Watch and be amazed, bro.”

Frank took a few steps back from the others to give himself some space. Then he concentrated on his love for the legion, the image that crowned the tops of all their standards. He felt his arms stretch out and the feathers sprout. His feet turned into massive claws. His face stretched out into a curved beak. In a few moments, Frank had turned into a massive, golden eagle.

Frank desperately wished he had a camera with him. Percy’s face was priceless.

In short order, everyone was ferried across the gap. Jason flew Piper over himself, but more often he was content to hover nearby in case someone slipped after Frank dropped them off. Percy went last, and after his feet touched the ground Frank turned back into himself, landing rather gracefully on the path. 

“ BRAH, HOW DID YOU DO THAT !?” Percy’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates, gleaming neon green like they were in Dawn’s house. 

Frank could not help but blush at Percy’s excitement. “I’m a shapeshifter. I can turn into things.”

“ _HOH_ BRAH, YOU GOT NO IDEA HOW SMALL KINE CRAZY THAT IS !” Percy was hopping up and down, and Frank was resisting the urge to reach out and grab him before he fell off the edge. “ My gods show their power by how many forms they can take! Most of them don’t have more than ten! How many animals can you turn into ?”

Frank was quite sure he was blushing now. Behind Percy all the others seemed to be giggling at how uncomfortable Frank was and how excited Percy was. “I mean...I never counted but I think I can turn into anything. I even turned into a dragon once.”

Percy’s jaw went slack. “ _ Hoh _ .”

“If you’re done fanboying over him, can we have Frank back?” Jason called up. 

Percy nodded mutely.

“What do you need, Jason?” Frank was tall enough to see over everyone’s heads and look directly at Jason. 

“Reyna thinks you should scout ahead, just in case there are any more places where we might need to fly over again.”

“Sure thing,” Frank started flipping through his mental encyclopedia of birds. A hawk would probably be best up here, just in case there were any other birds of prey around. He might have gone with an owl, but he was pretty sure Annabeth might object to that. 

“ Ooh, ooh can I make a reques t?” Percy looked prone to bounce again. 

“Sure,” Frank hoped Percy would not ask for anything too extravagant. Bigger shapes like that eagle took more energy. 

“ Can you turn into an 'ō'ō? ”

“Sorry, Percy, but I can only turn into things I know. I’ve never seen an ‘'ō'ō’ before.”

Percy’s face fell, and Frank felt like he had just tossed a child’s birthday cake on the ground. 

“I mean, if you could describe it to me…” Frank started, but Percy shook his head no.

“ Maybe later ,” Percy’s face had turned from sadness to an angry scowl. “ I’m sure you can see what’s left of them in the history museum in Honolulu. You should get going, we have a long way to go before we reach Kaneohe .”

Frank opened his mouth to protest, but Percy turned on his heel and started walking away. The others followed suit. Frank’s changes came from his emotions, and usually when he turned into a bird the feeling of joy that came from flying was what he focused on. But now, watching Percy walk away so dejectedly, all Frank could summon was sadness. So he took to the wing as a massive black vulture instead. The winds rising up from the valley would help him glide anyway. 

When Frank returned, it was all good news. No more rope-less crossings and even a few staircases along the way. As soon as he was finished reporting to Reyna and Jason, Frank turned into a vulture again to fly to the back of the line. Percy was there, and while he did not look as upset as he was before, his eyes were more gray than green again. Frank started to apologize, but Percy stopped him. 

“ I’m sorry ,” he said. “ You didn’t deserve that. I just got a little over excited. I was thinking I could see a real live 'ō'ō .”

Frank sighed with relief. He hated tension. “So, what is an ‘'ō'ō?’”

Percy’s face fell a bit, but only a little. “'Ō'ōs were a type of bird that used to live here on the islands. They were black all over except for a few feathers that were bright yellow, and those were used to make featherworks.”

Percy must have seen Frank’s confused expression. “Featherworks are just things made out of feathers. There were  _ kahili  _ staffs and  _ mahiole _ helmets, but the most spectacular were the  _ e ʻahuʻula _ capes. They say the cape of King Kamehameha the Great took eight kings and the feathers of eighty-thousand 'ō'ō birds to finish it.”

“They killed eighty-thousand birds?” Frank blanched at the thought. 

“ Shoots, no ,” Percy replied. “ After they were trapped they were released or kept as pets. It’s  _ kapu  _ to kill an 'ō'ō .”

“ _ Kapu _ ?” Frank’s head was starting to spin from all the new words.

“You know it as ‘taboo,’” Percy explained. “Ancient laws and stuff, things you’re not supposed to do or places you’re not supposed to go. So no one killed 'ō'ōs, just plucked their feathers.”

“So, what happened to them?” Frank inquired.

Percy’s face was set when he answered, his eyes were almost completely gray, not silver like Annabeth’s, but an angry, dark gray with the faintest hint of green. “ The  _ haoles _ happened .”

Frank had heard the word once or twice before, but now he was quite certain that it meant the people who had invaded the islands long ago. 

Percy’s eyes snapped away, suddenly, scanning the woods around them.

“Look man, I’m so sorry about that--,” Frank began.

“Quiet,” Percy hissed. The other six had stopped in their tracks.

“Did I do something wrong? Please, just tell me,” Frank tried again.

“ SHH! Don’t you feel that ?” Percy looked wild, frantically searching for something. 

“Feel what?” Annabeth piped up from the middle of the group. 

“The  _ mana _ ,” Percy’s answer was scarcely above a whisper, but as he said it Frank felt it too. The air seemed to be shimmering, not like it was hiding something like the Mist was, but like it was announcing something. The birds were singing loudly and the trees around them were trembling.

“What is it, do you think?” Piper had her hand on her dagger.

As if to answer, a massive form erupted from the ground right in front of Frank. It looked like a man, but twelve feet tall and with reddish-brown skin. Frank could not tell if the color reminded him of fertile earth or dried blood more. Around his waist was a loincloth, on his shoulders a cloak made of gleaming red feathers, an  _ e ahu’ula  _ Frank remembered. In his right hand was a scepter crowned with a mass of glossy black feathers, a  _ kahili _ . His face was obscured by a helmet, which might have been a Roman helmet with a few adjustments; where the horse-hair plume should have been was a large arc that came forward and past the brim, supported by spokes radiating from the dome. This too was covered in the gleaming red feathers.  _ Mahiole _ . With one hand he reached up and pulled it off his head, revealing a broad, almost disarming smile. 

“Percy, you did not tell me you were friends with a dragon!”

Percy was frozen for a moment. Frank could practically hear the gears in his head turning. Then he smiled as well. “ Kū! What a surprise! I didn’t know you were on Oahu !”

Kū beamed. “I decided to drop in after I heard you and Na Maka mixed it up on Waialae. Combat like that always attracts my attention. Is it true that you swamped another beach-house?”

“ In my defense, she was trying to steal Keuakapo’s  _ mana _ ,” Percy smiled sheepishly. Then his demeanor changed. “ Speaking of which, this whole thing with Na Maka really doesn’t bode well for the islands, and I would really appreciate some help… ”

“Bah, I never get involved with that crazy old lady,” Kū chuckled amiably. “Besides I gave you that  _ pahoa _ and the shark teeth to furnish it on your first quest, did I not? I’m sure you will be fine. But enough about you, why do you not introduce me to your friend here?”

Kū’s eyes were dark, glittering like obsidian, and fixed on Frank’s head. He had the distinct feeling that Kū was sizing him up. For the first time in his life, Frank was shorter than someone else, and he really did not like it. Frank opened his mouth to speak, but Percy quickly cut in. 

“ Why the sudden interest in my friends, Kū? ” Percy’s smile was wide and starting to look forced.

The giant leaned forward and down. Frank could smell him now, iron and freshly cut grass mixed together. “Oh, I saw him turn into a bird and back into a human! That is three forms already, and I know he is not one of us, so he must be a dragon.”

From behind them, Hazel took a step forward, trying to close the distance between them. “Are there dragons in Hawai’i?”

Kū rounded on Hazel, his feathery cape flapping like the wings of some giant bird, his voice grated out like stones ground together. “ _ Haole _ , would you be so kind as to see yourself out of this conversation?”

It took a lot to make Hazel Levesque flinch. This was the girl who had the courage to curse in front of a nun, and that is no small feat. But when the giant man looked her dead in the face and spoke, Hazel seemed to shrink under his gaze. Frank saw red. He curled his fists and was ready to pound Kū into a greasy stain on the Stairway to Heaven, but Percy grabbed his arm and forced it behind Frank’s back.

“ My friends are on a quest with me, Kū ,” Percy answered, his voice was smooth and soothing like a lapping wave. “ They come with Dawn’s blessing. ”

Kū turned away from Hazel and snarled at them instead. His lips had drawn completely off his face and exposed every tooth in his jaw from the front to the back, his eyes squinted so tight Frank could not see anything but a dark slit. His face softened after a moment, though Frank could still see way too many teeth. “My apologies. If Dawn has sent them, I will forgive this girl’s insolence.”

“ _ Mahalo _ . You are most  _ pono _ , Kū ,” Percy bowed his head. Frank followed suit.

Kū puffed up his chest a bit. “Indeed, I am. But you still have not answered me. Why is a dragon here on the islands? I have not seen one of his kind since the third Kamehameha’s time, when so many from Guangdong came to my shores to work in the plantations.”

It suddenly clicked for Frank. His grandmother had told him a few stories about chinese dragons; they were renowned shapeshifters, taking any form that that they wished whenever they wanted. Kū thought that Frank was a dragon. 

In Frank’s experience, it was always bad to lie to a god or anyone for that matter, but gods had a nasty habit of killing people when they were deceived. Percy, however, had other ideas. 

“ Oh, yes! This dragon was just dropping by Honolulu to visit! He was swimming as a dolphin, and when I swamped the beach-house he washed up on shore too !”

Kū raised an eyebrow. “You can become a dolphin as well?”

“Yes!” Percy had the biggest, cheesiest grin on his face. “ Show him! Show Kū how you can change into a dolphin !”

“But Percy, I’m not…” Frank did not get to complete the sentence. Percy elbowed him hard in the side. 

“I know you’re shy, but you really  _ need _ to show him how you can turn into a dolphin !” 

Percy seemed really adamant about it, so Frank obliged. He focused hard on stretching out his back and shrinking his arms, and then he was a dolphin, balanced precariously on the Stairway to Heaven. Frank offered a silent prayer of thanks to the gods that no one else was around; no amount of Mist could cover up something this odd. 

_ Listen to me Frank _ , Percy’s voice sounded inside Frank’s mind. It was so unexpected he almost snapped back into human form.  _ Kū is one of the four greatest gods in Hawai’i, and he is also a god of war. If he thinks that a ‘mere human’ is more powerful than he is, he might get mad, and when gods get mad things tend to blow up. _

_ But why would he think I’m more powerful than he is?  _ Frank was no stranger to hearing voices in his head. When Ares and Mars had been separated, they had duked it out in his head for weeks until his fight in Venice. Still, Percy’s voice was not intrusive like theirs were. It was much more respectful, like a conversation.

_ Remember that thing I told you about the gods changing shapes _ _? _

Frank suddenly did remember.  _ Oh this could be bad.  _

_ We won’t let it come to that.  _ Percy assured him.  _ Now when you turn back to yourself, Kū’s going to prompt you and I want you to turn yourself into the biggest, most stunning Chinese dragon this side of Beijing. You think you can handle that? _

_ We’ll see in a minute.  _ Frank was not sure how he shrugged in that moment, since the whole conversation was mental and dolphins don’t even have shoulders, but he was quite sure that he shrugged anyway. With that, Frank pulled himself together and stood up on his legs, brushing the dirt off his shirt. Kū looked mildly impressed. 

“Very good, dragon,” he said. “But I have one better! Have you ever seen a form as magnificent as this?”

In an instant Kū was replaced by a very large coconut palm. Frank had no idea why, but for some reason he became very uncomfortable and started blushing. A quick look past the palm, and Frank could see six very confused demigods regarding the tree. Percy alone seemed immune, and if anything he looked like he was barely suppressing a gale of laughter. Frank assumed that coconut palms had some significance that was lost on the rest of them. Then the tree disappeared and Kū was back. 

“Impressive, was it not?” Kū was stretching backwards, basking in his own glow. “I am certain that the dragon cannot top it.”

Frank closed his eyes and called to mind an image that he had seen at his grandmother’s house. It was a statue that she told him had been passed down to his family from the Han Dynasty: a brilliant green body made from jade, polished until each scale gleamed in the light from the open window. Ruby eyes glittered from its face, bronze talons gripping the base, and golden whiskers floating from its jaws. He focused on that image, and then imagined it bigger, big enough to circle his house maybe, big enough to crumple a tree like a toothpick.

“Woah.”

Hazel’s voice was far away. When Frank opened his eyes, he had trouble fathoming what he saw. The seven demigods on the ridge looked like they were the size of squirrels, but their eyes were wide enough that Frank could see the whites even from his height. His massive claws were sunk deep into the rocks, gleaming like burnished metal, holding his sinuous body to the face of the mountains. His tail wrapped behind his friends and draped down the other side of the peak, glittering green like a thousand gems. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see his massive whiskers, floating and whirling in their own way, with no heed to the wind. 

Even Kū looked suitably awed at the sight of him. 

Frank was flushed with triumph and snorted a jet of flame out of his nostrils. The second after he did it, he realized his mistake. In China, dragons were water-creatures, and none of them breathed fire. 

Kū noticed too. His face twisted into a mask of fury, exposing all his teeth again and squinting his eyes so tight they were just slits. 

“YOU THOUGHT TO DECEIVE ME, HUMAN!?” Kū’s voice hit him with such force that Frank’s body snapped back into human shape. No longer taller than Kū, Frank was well and truly afraid again. 

“I SHOULD KILL YOU FOR THIS,” Kū’s feathered scepter was gone. In its place was a massive spear, its tip lined with shark’s teeth the size of knives. Around them a bank of dark clouds gathered and the wind began to howl, snatching at their clothes and trying to peel them off the ridge so that they would fall into the green abyss below. 

“ KŪ, PLEASE ,” Percy’s voice was almost lost in the wind. “ You are a wise god, you watch over our kings and our rulers! Good kings and good rulers are  _ pono _ ! Is it really your  _ kūleana _ to kill us here?

Kū paused for a moment to consider this. The wind was still eye-wateringly fast and the clouds still dark, but they did not get any faster or darker. Then Kū disappeared. His voice remained.

“ _ Auwe _ , I have suffered your disrespect for too long! Begone!”

As soon as that word, ‘begone,’ was spoken, the winds snapped like a whip and Frank felt his feet lift off the ground. He was flying through the air, the land and sky blurring around him into a dizzying spiral. He had no idea where he was going, but ‘gone’ was a pretty good way to describe it. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. A note on Keuakapo's patronage from @yourozness: "Okay so the hardest thing about Hawaiian gods is they are in charge of so many things so it's hard to be like, they're in charge of this one thing, but saying this works well enough, kinda like how we'd say Laka is the goddess of hula even though she's in charge of so many goddamn things." Keuakapo (also spelled Keuakepo) is a patron of Fire as well.   
> 2\. A note on the creation of Hawai'i, there's a LOT of different versions of the islands creation. I have @yourozness' blessing on this adaptation, as I have borrowed elements from several versions.   
> 3\. I would have brought Grover along, but it was getting really REALLY difficult to balance everyone out and keep things moving. Having 8 characters in a room all at once is so hard to write.  
> 4\. Percy's Pidgin: Hele: "Hele means to walk forward but saying hele on over is a common phrase to mean let's go."  
> 5\. Percy's Pidgin: Brah is a shorter form of braddah (which Leilani used a few chapters ago), used the same way as "bro"  
> 6\. Percy's Pidgin: Hoh is and exclamation of surprise, like "wow"  
> 7\. Percy's Pidgin: Shoots, functions like the English slang "shoot"  
> 8\. The color of Kū's skin: @yourozness: "Yeah we have red dirt in Hawaii so we would probably associate it with the color of the earth." Kū's patronage extends over farming as well, so I tried to work that in.   
> 9\. Percy's Pidgin: Pono is a difficult word to translate, and it has many meanings but here it means "merciful" or "righteous."  
> 10\. Kū is also a god of male fertility, so guess what a palm tree represents?  
> 11: Percy's Pidgin: Kūleana means responibility, role. 
> 
> Yeah, there was a TON to unpack in this chapter. As always, a giant thanks to @yourozness who, if you have not guessed, was the one who supplied me with all this information. It is only because of her that I am able to tastefully and accurately represent some facet of Hawaiian culture. You should all go follow her blog on tumblr. Seriously.

**Author's Note:**

> 1: Yes there are direct flights to Hawaii, but it made more sense for the CHB demigods to fly first to California to pick up the others.  
> 2: The garlands of flowers, called lei, are no longer complimentary, but for the sake of Nico being creepy we included it.  
> 3: from @yourozness: "fun fact: in hawaii we actually have sunscreen with a higher spf than you can find anywhere else because the sun is so constant. So he'd actually have to buy a hawaiian sunscreen if he wanted to stay protected. A lot of tourists bring their own and end up super red"  
> 4: Annabeth always Judo-flips someone


End file.
